Music Director
South-African born Zoë Beyers has established a reputation as one of the finest violinists based in the UK, and performs as soloist, chamber musician, director and orchestral leader across the world. Zoë’s remarkable versatility was nurtured by Gabrielle Lester and Felix Andrievsky at the Royal College of Music, where she was an ABRSM international scholarship holder, Yehudi Menuhin Scholar, winner of the Tagore Gold Medal, and winner of the UNISA String Competition in South Africa. Since her solo debut aged eleven with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Paavo Järvi, she has performed with many distinguished conductors worldwide. She currently features prominently as soloist with the English Symphony Orchestra on the ESO Digital platform, performing amongst others Weinberg’s Concertino and Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur le toit. She also performs as a soloist with the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, Zoë took up the position of Leader of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom she appears regularly as a soloist and chamber musician.
Zoë is a member of the internationally renowned Hebrides Ensemble and also performs, broadcasts and records with the Nash Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Scottish Ensemble, and I Musicanti. In 2019 she joined the Dante Quartet as their first violinist. She has collaborated with Francois Leleux, Stephen Osborne, Lars Vogt, Elisabeth Leonskaja and Alexander Janiczek, and composers Helen Grime, Huw Watkins, Oliver Knussen, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir James Macmillan. Hebrides Ensemble’s 2017 recording of Maxwell Davies’s late chamber works (‘The Last Island’/Delphian), featured on BBC Radio 3 and attracted top ranking reviews in The Times, The Guardian and BBC Music Magazine.
Zoë performs regularly with the English Symphony Orchestra as a soloist and director, as well as in her role as their concertmaster. Zoë relishes the challenge of directing from the violin: her recording of early Mendelssohn concerti with the University of Stellenbosch Camerata was nominated for a SAMA award in 2011; her 2013 recording of Wassenaer concerti armonici (directing the Innovation Chamber Ensemble for Somm Records) was Classic FM’s CD of the week, and their 2014 disc of rare Elgar works was received with critical acclaim.
As a guest leader, Zoë appears with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony and Scottish Symphony Orchestras, the Philharmonia, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Aurora Orchestra. For the past two years she regularly guest lead the Orquesta Nacional de España at the invitation of maestro Juanjo Mena. She features as leader on many highly regarded recordings by Andris Nelsons, Juanjo Mena and John Storgards, most recently on discs of de Falla and Ginastera with Mena and the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos.
Zoë is dedicated to performing the music of contemporary composers and is involved in the commissioning and premiering of several new works. She also has a passionate interest in education, teaching at the Birmingham Conservatoire and coaching violinists and ensembles at the start of their careers. She is proud to be involved in ARCO, a distance learning collaboration between Birmingham Conservatoire and students in deprived areas of South Africa.
