British violinist Fenella Barton, whom The Strad has hailed as “gifted and decisive,” and The Manchester Evening News has reported is “well poised and vivacious . . . a joy to hear and behold,” enjoys a dynamic career as both a soloist and chamber musician.

As a soloist, she has performed on the Los Angeles Chamber Concert Series, at the Cheltenham, Huddersfield, Aldeburgh and Manchester Festivals, Snape Proms, Dartington Hall, and for the British Council.

As a chamber musician she has given duo recitals at the Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall with Simone Dinnerstein. and has appeared at the BBC Proms, the Queen Elizabeth Hall; at festivals in Aldeburgh, Bath, Ultima (Norway), Aarhus (Denmark), Turku (Finland), Italy, and Belgium; and on tours of the East and West coasts of the United States. Her collaborators, in addition to pianist Simone Dinnerstein, have included Martin Lovett of the Amadeus Quartet; horn virtuoso Hermann Baumann; and the Gaudier Ensemble (consisting of the principals from the Chamber Orchestra of Europe), with which she performed at Wigmore Hall and on a tour of Holland. In addition, she appeared with the Vellinger Quartet at the Davos Festival in Switzerland in a concert that was broadcast on Swiss radio.

Ms. Barton is often invited to guest lead ensembles including the contemporary music group Capricorn and the chamber ensemble Fibonacci Sequence. For fifteen years, she has been a frequent participant in the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove. She currently leads the “virtuosic” Configure8  of whom The Strad commented on “ the gorgeous sound combinations these players could achieve”. She is a member of the Kandinsky piano trio with pianist Katya Apekisheva and cellist Alexei Sarkissov. Ms. Barton led Jane’s Minstrels for ten years, and was co-leader of the Goldberg Ensemble for several years.

Ms. Barton can regularly be heard on broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. Her three recordings with the Minstrels on the NMC record label were highly praised; one was selected as a Record of the Year by Gramophone magazine. Also for NMC, she has recorded the world premiere commercial release of Of Knots and Skeins by Anthony Payne, (a piece written for Ms. Barton and Ms. Dinnerstein for their Purcell Room duo recital). This autumn, her album of Russian Sonatas with Jonathan Powell will be released on Altarus. Future projects include  recording  the Bach solo violin Sonatas and Partitas and  a tour.

In 2004, Ms. Barton was diagnosed with acute rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes chronic joint inflammation. She struggled to maintain her flourishing career, and, remaining optimistic, refused to listen to those who told her that she could not continue to play.   Since the end of 2006, after undergoing a combination of cutting-edge and complementary treatments, Ms. Barton has remained symptom free and is now playing with renewed passion and vigour.