Biography

Gemma Sharples is a chamber musician and violin teacher who performs around the UK and internationally. In 2018 Gemma was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her contribution to the music profession.

Since 2019 Gemma has been a member of London Mozart Players, one of the UK’s leading chamber orchestras. She is part of the second violin section, regularly sitting up to principal, and also works as a freelance musician with other orchestras including London Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and London Contemporary Orchestra.

As second violin in the Gildas Quartet Gemma has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room and live on BBC Radio 3, as well as touring to China, Australia, South Africa and Europe. The quartet are alumni of the City Music Foundation artists scheme and are an associate ensemble at Birmingham Conservatoire having completed a Junior Fellowship there in 2017. Recent highlights include working with Harrison Birtwistle at Dartington International Festival in 2019, performing with Joanna MacGregor and Adrian Brendel for a Wigmore Hall recital in February 2020 and launching their project Surround Sound Sessions to critical acclaim in Graz in December 2019.

For ten years Gemma was also the violinist of the Albany Piano Trio who specialise in the performance and promotion of music by female composers. They commissioned works by composers such as Charlotte Bray, Judith Bingham and Josephine Stephenson and instigated and curated a sold out festival of ‘Women in Music’ at the Royal College of Music in 2014. In 2016 their concert for International Women’s Day was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

Gemma studied music at Christ Church college, Oxford, followed by a masters degree in violin performance at the Royal Academy of Music where she was awarded the first Howard Davies Scholarship. Her teachers were Richard Deakin, Remus Azoitei and Yumi Sasaki. For over 10 years she has been a violin teacher at Junior Academy and she also has a thriving private teaching practice. Her students have won places at leading UK conservatoires, been accepted into the National Youth Orchestra and National Children’s Orchestra, and won prizes at prestigious competitions.