ABOUT DUO LAMORNIANA
RICARDA SCHMIDT
.... was born in Eisenach, Thuringia (she shares that place with German composer J.S.Bach) and started to play the violin at the age of four, changing to the viola by the age of 17.
From a very young age she attended Belvedere musicians’ boarding school in Weimar, later on taking up her studies at the academy of music, Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in the same town. During that time she worked several months as a substitute in the Staatskapelle Weimar. In 1990, just after the fall of the Berlin wall, Ricarda resumed her studies with American Prof. James Creitz at the academy of music in Trossingen from where she went on to another job as a substitute in the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk (SWR) Baden-Baden.
Having graduated from the Trossingen academy she went on to the Augsburg opera house and finally to the “Südthüringisches Staatstheater Meiningen”, the Meiningen opera house where she spent almost 20 years as the co-principal leader of the viola section. During her time there she experienced many inspiring conductors and soloists, among them Kirill Petrenko and Elina Garanča.
Ricarda was also a sought-after companion for chamber music projects in which she partook numerously.
She was able to amass a huge repertoire containing operas as well as symphonic pieces, solo literature and chamber music.
Ricarda gave up Meiningen by the end of the year 2017 to move to England, where she hopes to establish herself again as the professional musician that she is and as a chamber music duo with Ute, whom she has been playing chamber music with for a long time.
UTE WEICKENMEIER
... was born in Darmstadt but moved to Munich with her family by the age of six. Three years later she had her first piano lessons with Nelly Albrecht and later on with Alessandra Gentile before taking up her studies to become a repetiteur at the academy of music, Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar in 2000, where Prof. Hans-Christian Steinhöfel became her teacher.
Ute did a lot of accompanying during her Weimar years, working with student singers at the academy’s own “opera school”. She became choir assistant of the Jena Philharmonic choir, working closely with Berit Walther.
Having graduated from Weimar academy Ute won her first auditioning at “Südthüringisches Staatstheater Meinigen” where she stayed for two and a half years and worked with chief conductor Hans Urbanek before moving on to “Staatstheater Nürnberg”, the Nuremberg opera house where she was able to work with German conductor Christof Prick. After three years she was made redundant as a consequence of the German cultural crisis. She was then helping out at Osnabrück opera house every now and then and finally found a new job at Oper Halle, the Halle opera house.
When cultural crisis struck again Ute gave up the job to work at her parents’ office in Munich as the Assistant of Board for three years.
However, she always missed music sadly and so decided to finally make true her dream of living in her favourite country, England, where she’s playing lots of chamber music with violist Ricarda Schmidt.
HOW IT STARTED
Duo Lamorniana stepped into existence on a lovely summer afternoon in 2018, when Ricarda and Ute were sitting outside in the garden, enjoying the beautiful Lamorna landscape around.
Having played lots of chamber music on many occasions before Duo Lamorniana want to bring the music which is vitally important to them to the people in and around Lamorna who have been ever so nice and welcoming since we moved here in January 2018 and of course to everybody beyond who would like to listen.
We have been playing in the churches of St Buryan and St Hilary, the village halls of Lamorna and Townshend and other places in and around Penzance; we are always looking out for new venues all over Cornwall and beyond and are especially proud and happy to announce our upcoming concert at Burgh House, Hampstead, London, in December 2023.
Also, we're playing at Ponsandane Care Home in Penzance on a bi-monthly basis which is always a great pleasure.
We keep making plans and have contacted more friends from German opera house days to offer more concerts here which we hope will happen soon.
We would like to thank all our friends and audiences who keep supporting us. It would be so much harder without them.
Get in Touch
Trewoofe
Lamorna, Penzance
TR19 6PA, UK