The Thames Chamber Orchestra was formed by Michael Dobson in 1962 to take part in a series of concerts in the 14th century Parish Church at Kingston-upon-Thames. Since then, the orchestra has appeared at festivals at Windsor, Norwich, Fishguard, Nottingham, Cambridge, Pershore, Madley, Walsingham and at many other venues in this country and abroad, including the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and St John's Smith Square. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the TCO has always invited the finest chamber musicians to be amongst its members and its sense of style and warmth of sound have frequently earned much praise both from the critics and from the many guest conductors who have worked with the orchestra.
The orchestra's Principal Conductor, Keith Marshall, read music at Caius College Cambridge, before going on to study oboe at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has played in many of our most famous orchestras at the most prestigious concert halls and festivals such as the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals, Carnegie Hall in the USA, Suntory Hall in Japan (with the Philharmonia orchestra) and the Musikverein in Vienna with the English Chamber Orchestra. Keith has often appeared as soloist with the Thames Chamber Orchestra, playing concertos in both the Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore halls, and at other venues throughout the United Kingdom. He also conducts Lord Lloyd Webber's award winning Phantom of the Opera in London.
In 1979 when Michal Kaznowski took up the post of principal cello in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra working with Simon Rattle, he was then the youngest principal cello in the country to accept such a senior position. He left the CBSO in 1983 for what became the Maggini quartet, now one of the UK's preeminent quartets. The Maggini Quartet has recorded a multiple award winning series of over thirty English Quartets for Naxos, include winning both the French and British Gramophone Chamber Music CD's of the Year.
Michal's teachers were Maurice Gendron at the Menuhin School (including visiting teachers Nadia Boulanger and Yehudi Menuhin), Florence Hooton at the Royal Academy of Music (where he won the major cello prize), André Navarra in Germany, (as a German Government Scholarship winner) and Radu Aldulescu in Holland.
Michal has taught for many years at the Junior Royal College of Music and in the past was the senior cello teacher at Birmingham Conservatoire for seven years and taught at the Purcell School of Music for fifteen years. With his wife Sarah, who is also a cellist, he has conducted and organised the children’s orchestra of the Pagoda in Richmond for the last twelve years. He was appointed an ARAM in 1991 for his work in the Quartet, and is also an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University and Brunel University. Michal Kaznowski plays on an Italian cello, made in 1776 in Genoa by Jacobus Philippus Cordanus.