Trio Descartes

Free admission | Donations welcome

Programme

Franz Joseph Haydn: Piano Trio in E major, Hob. XV:28
I. Allegro moderato
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Piano Trio in E minor
Florence Price: Night (1946) (arranged for piano trio)
Robert Schumann: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 63

Artist Bio

Phoebe Rousochatzaki
Based between The Hague and London, Phoebe has appeared alongside several European orchestras and at numerous festivals, and is also an accomplished and enthusiastic chamber player. She is the 2nd violin associate principal at the Residentie Orchestra, and she’s appearing with regularly with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Solistes Europeens.
Phoebe has appeared as a soloist with orchestras, including the Orchestre of the Eighteenth Century, and has performed in numerous festivals and concert seasons such as the Sion Festival, Music Chapel Queen Elizabeth Festival, the Orlando Festival, the Aurora Festival among others.
Recent highlights include the Bach competition (Leipzig) in March 2026 where Phoebe was awarded a fine Klaus Ludwig Clement violin. In February 2026 Phoebe
performed Haflidi Halgrimsson’s Seven Epigrams at the Barbican as part of the BBC total immersion series.
Phoebe is a Cultuurfonds and NMF laureate and has won numerous awards and accolades at national and international competitions, including awards from Laskaridis Foundation (Ismini Karter violin scholarship) , Labberté Hoedemakerprijzen,Tokyo Minato city violin competition, concours Jeunes Solistes.
An avid chamber musician since a very young age, Phoebe enjoys a rich and varied concert life as a chamber player. She is a founding member of the Tamesis String Quartet, a quartet based in London, which was awarded the 1st prize at the Cavatina Competition in Wigmore Hall in London, in May 2025 and has appeared at several venues across the UK including Barnes,Canterbury and Folkestone music Societies.
Phoebe completed an Artist Diploma Degree with distinction at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in June 2026, where she studied with David Takeno. She previously earned Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees with honors from Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague (Netherlands), studying with Joseph Puglia, Walter Reiter and Janet Krause. She has benefited from lessons with pedagogues such as Svetlana Makarova, Pavel Vernikov, Olivier Charlier, Stephan Picard, Shunske Sato, Leonidas Kavakos, Lukas David, Lars Bjornkaer.

George Wilkes
George Wilkes is a British Cellist whose performances have taken him across the UK, Europe, and the United States. He has received invitations to renowned festivals including the Nume Festival in Italy, the Schiermonnikoog and Apeldoorn Festivals in the Netherlands, the Santander Festival in Spain, and the Hellensmusic Festival in the UK. He has appeared with the Chipping Campden Festival Orchestra and spent two years based in Belgium, performing widely in major venues such as BOZAR, MIM, the Parlamentarium, and the Korean Cultural Centre. As a chamber musician, George has collaborated with distinguished artists including Bruno Delepelaire (principal cellist, Berliner Philharmoniker), Misha Amory (Brentano Quartet), Mihaela Martin (Kronberg Academy), and Maya Iwabuchi (leader, Royal Scottish National Orchestra), among many others.

George completed his bachelor’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music under the guidance of Josephine Knight. During his studies, he won the May Mukle/Douglas Cameron Prize, received the Frank Britton Award, and was nominated by the Academy for the NPS Grant Award toward the purchase of a new instrument. He was supported by the Albert Cooper Memorial Trust and is currently funded by Help Musicians UK. He continued his training in Brussels with renowned pedagogue Jeroen Reuling and is now pursuing a master’s degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Louise Hopkins. He has received masterclass guidance from internationally celebrated cellists including Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, and Alban Gerhardt.
Alongside his classical work, George has developed a strong passion for contemporary music and composer collaboration. At the Royal Academy of Music, he premiered numerous new works and received guidance from members of leading contemporary music ensembles such as Manchester Collective and Riot Ensemble. Since graduating, he has taken on several contemporary music projects, including premiering a work by Ryan Wigglesworth with the Knussen Chamber Orchestra at Snape Maltings, collaborating with Helmut Lachenmann for a performance of his music at the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, appearing in a full performance of Pierrot Lunaire as part of a Schoenberg series in Brussels, and premiering his own composition Black Is the Colour at the Shapavalov Festival in Ghent.
George plays on a Hilaire Darche cello made in Belgium in 1927 and a bow by French maker Doriane Bodart, crafted almost 100 years later.

Elisabeth Tsai
Pianist Elisabeth Tsai is gaining recognition for her interpretation of the German Classical and Romantic repertoire. First prizewinner of the 2026 Cambridge International Piano Competition, the 2026 BPSE Beethoven Prize, the 2024 Brahms Competition Detmold and 3rd prizewinner at the 2026 Takamatsu International Piano Competition, her recent seasons have included solo and concerto performances across the US, the UK, Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan, notably her programmes of the last three Beethoven sonatas and the last four piano works of Brahms. Elisabeth is currently a Junior Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is under the mentorship of Ronan O’Hora, Richard Goode, and Paul Lewis. She has completed an Artist Diploma at Guildhall and a Master’s at the Yale School of Music. She is an active chamber musician and was a Fellow at the 2024 Norfolk Chamber Festival as well as a Fellow at the 2023 Smithsonian Chamber Society on fortepiano. She was invited to the Lieven Piano Foundation in Vienna and has been privileged to play to artists such as Robert Levin, Imogen Cooper, Elisso Virsaladze and Till Fellner.

Presented in association with Guildhall School of Music and Drama