Phillip & Noreen Silver

Noreen Silver, Cello, Phillip Silver, Piano

Noreen and Phillip Silver bring a wealth of performing experience to their highly regarded partnership. They have an enviable international reputation for chamber music playing of the highest caliber. The Duo, founded when Noreen and Phillip were students at the New England Conservatory of Music, has received accolades and acclaim from appreciative audiences and critics throughout Europe, Israel, the United States, Scandinavia, and the Czech Republic.

Their imaginative programming, in which lesser-known masterpieces are given exposure alongside established repertoire favorites, has proven very popular and made them much in demand.

Noreen Silver was born and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. As a teenager she was a member of the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Cello studies include degree programs at London’s Royal College of Music and, with the support of a Rotary International Fellowship, advanced degree studies with Laurence Lesser at Boston’s New England Conservatory. Supplementary studies were also undertaken with world renowned cellists Pierre Fournier, Jacqueline du Pré, and William Pleeth.

Noreen’s professional experience includes several years in Seattle’s Northwest Chamber Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Boston Opera, London’s BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She is now principal cellist of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra (USA), and has appeared as soloist with the orchestra on several occasions.

Much of Noreen’s career has been centered around the Silver Duo with pianist husband Phillip Silver. Together they have performed in Israel, Germany, Czech Republic, USA and UK, and have broadcast on national radio stations in many European countries. Noreen has been described as “an extraordinarily soulful player” who “demonstrates an uncommon depth of feeling and imagination.” (The Glasgow Herald).

Noreen is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maine teaching cello and coaching chamber music. In a recent project she performed the six Suites for Solo Cello by JS Bach, at the School of Performing Arts. Noreen is a dedicated teacher and an avid chamber music player who is featured as soloist in CDs of Chamber Music by Leone Sinigaglia and Bernhard Sekles on the Toccata Classics label in London.

Phillip Silver is an internationally acclaimed solo and collaborative artist. The Frankfurter Rundschau described his playing as “virtuosic,” Haaretz commented upon his “…superb technical ability that enthralled the audience with melody, lyricism and poetry,” while the Boston Globe called him “an international collaborative pianist of the first rank,” and theJerusalem Post described him as “a superb accompanist whose work is marked by sensitivity, felicity of style and an inborn musicianship which unerringly directs him to the most appropriate musical gesture.”

Phillip has performed in many of the world’s leading concert halls including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls in London, the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, Scotland, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Germany, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the Israel Museum and Henry Crown Theater in Jerusalem.

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