Ursula Leveaux
Ursula Leveaux is a sought-after chamber musician and has been a member the Nash Ensemble, the resident Ensemble at the Wigmore Hall, since 1997.
She is the Principal Bassoon with City of London Sinfonia and is also in demand as performer on Period Instruments; in 2011 she was appointed Principal Bassoon of the Academy of Ancient Music.
She is a prominent orchestral player having also held the position of Principal Bassoon with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 1987 to 2007. Ursula is frequently invited to appear as guest principal with major orchestras and ensembles in Britain and throughout Europe.
A former pupil at Chetham's School of Music, she furthered her studies with Martin Gatt in London, Brian Pollard in Amsterdam and also studied Baroque bassoon with Danny Bond in The Hague. While still a student in London Ursula won the Shell-London Symphony Orchestra Scholarship and also became a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra working with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Georg Solti.
As well as regular appearances with the SCO, Ursula’s solo work has included concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and at the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Barbican in London with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
She was also invited to play a solo recital at the Edinburgh International Festival together with pianist Malcolm Martineau in 2021.
On early instruments Ursula has performed as soloist with the Academy of Ancient Music and the English Concert.
Ursula’s CD recordings include the complete chamber music of Poulenc, the Saint-Saens Bassoon sonata , Beethoven Septet and Schubert Octet, all with the Nash Ensemble. She can also be heard on the complete recording of Chabrier Songs with Dame Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson. With the Academy of Ancient Music she has recorded the Bach Orchestral Suites and the St. John and Matthew Passions. As well as a huge range of orchestral and opera repertoire with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra , Ursula has also recorded the Vivaldi Bassoon Concerto in D minor, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' Bassoon Concerto, Strathclyde Concerto No 8, which was written especially for her, and the Mozart Bassoon Concerto released in 2006.
Ursula plays on the folk album Midnight May Monday and also the soundtrack for the 2016 movie of ' We're Goin on a Bear Hunt' where she is credited in the closing titles.
Her most recent recording, made together with David McGuiness, is an album of improvisations for Bassoon, Keyboard and Kalimba called Rainy Sundays which was released in 2024.
Ursula has given masterclasses at most of the UK music colleges and as far afield as Toronto, Hong Kong and Melbourne. She was invited to join the Senior Faculty at the Marlboro Festival in the US in 2003, 2005 and 2007. She has been a member of the jury for the 2013 ARD Competition in Munich, for the semi final of the Eurovision Young Musician 2018 in Edinburgh and also for the Overseas League Woodwind Competition in 2020.
Ursula recently wrote and performed a solo theatre piece “Threads” which uses personal experience, a bassoon and a loop pedal and explores the way music can be threaded through a life. There are plans for further performances of the piece in Northern Italy so Ursula is busy trying to learn the italian translation of the script !
When not travelling and performing Ursula lives in the Lake District with her husband and daughter where she loves cold water dipping and cooking for friends.