Catherine Wilmers

Catherine’s album of lovely but neglected works for cello and piano, A Cello Century of British Women Composers from 1894-1994, was released worldwide by ASV in 2000. It received the rare gold award from the French recordings magazine Diapason, and was described as ‘a remarkable disc’ by the HMV website. She has performed works from it live on ‘In Tune’ for BBC Radio 3.

The Incorporated Society of Musicians awarded Catherine a Wigmore Hall debut recital and the Royal Academy of Music and the Kirckman Concert Society also presented her with Purcell Room Concerts, on the South Bank in London. She performed the first London performance of Andrjez Panufnik’s piano trio at the Wigmore Hall and the first performance of John McCabe’s oboe quartet while still a student at the Royal Academy of Music.

The great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich’s approval and recommendation was instrumental in Catherine attaining the position of sub-principal cellist in the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and her skill was recognised by Sir Georg Solti, who invited her to teach cello to his daughter. She particularly enjoyed recording music with the LPO for Lord of the Rings and Porgy and Bess, as well as playing solo cello continuo in Monteverdi’s Ulysses. Performing in concerts all over the world with Klaus Tennstedt and Bernard Haitink was also a highlight.

The University of Humboldt, California, interviewed her for a radio series on ‘Women in Music’, where she spoke about her experiences as the only female cellist in the LPO cello section in the 1970s. Her performance of Come under my Plaide by Imogen Holst was chosen to illustrate Composer of the Week Imogen Holst in January 2025 on BBC Radio 3. Dora Bright’s Polka à la Strauss was chosen for the German Radio station West Deutsche Rundfunk 3, the cultural channel, and also broadcast on WNYC Radio, New York’s flagship public radio station.