Jennifer Ward-Clarke

Reprinted with permission from Aitchison Cellos. In the first of an annual series of interviews with leading UK cello professors, Hannah Roberts talks about her musical upbringing and her experience of studying with William Pleeth and Ralph Kirshbaum. ‘I will always be grateful to my first teacher, my mother, for her unfailing dedication and for striking such a skillful balance between keeping things fun and maintaining discipline. I’m also very thankful that she tested the set up and response of my modest childhood instruments to be sure that they would work well for me because the way an instrument is set up is tremendously formative to a person’s concept of sound and physical approach. ‘I was offered a place at the Menuhin school when I was 8 years old. [...]