The Worshipful Company of Musicians has awarded its 2024 William Willson Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music to celebrated musician and Trinity Laban Professor of Double Bass Leon Bosch. He will be the first double bass player to be so honoured since the medal was first awarded in 1924.
The British virtuoso is the first double bassist and Black musician to receive the medal in the award’s 100 year history.
Leon Bosch is artistic director of I Musicanti, a mixed instrument ensemble comprising some of the most experienced and respected musicians in the UK. Since its formation in 2016, I Musicanti has appeared in concert series at Kings Place, Wigmore Hall, St Johns Smith Square, Conway Hall and in concerts and festivals around the UK. In 2017, Bosch established the Ubuntu Ensemble, which comprises fellow South Africa-born musicians now based in the UK.
Throughout his career, Leon Bosch has performed chamber music in duo partnerships, notably with John Thwaites, Sung-Suk Kang and his current duo partner, Rebeca Omordia. His many duo recordings, principally for Meridian Records, include surveys of British, South African, Russian and Hungarian double bass music as well as portraits of Giovanni Bottesini, Allan Stephenson and two Catalan virtuosos, Pedro Valls and Josep Cervera.
To further support his commitment to the dissemination of music for double bass, Leon Bosch set up I Musicanti Publishing. Editions in the catalogue include a number of Cervera’s works, the manuscripts for which Bosch was instrumental in locating and bringing to light.
Leon has a long history of chamber music guest collaborations with musicians of the highest calibre dating back to his student days. Other collaborations include with the Lindsay, Brodsky and Belcea string quartets, as well as with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with whom he was principal double bass from 1995 until 2014. He has also appeared as a concerto soloist with internationally renowned orchestras and conductors, having made his solo debut with the Philharmonia orchestra under Antony Beaumont in 1984.
Born in Cape Town, Leon Bosch began studying the double bass as a music student at the University of Cape Town, having enrolled as a cellist. He had initially hoped to study law but, having been imprisoned as a youth for anti-apartheid activities, was prevented from doing so by apartheid authorities. On graduating, he moved to Manchester to study for the PPRNCM Diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music. He became a British citizen in 2000.
As well as pursuing his activities as soloist and chamber musician around the world, he is in demand internationally as conductor, ensemble director and teacher. He also has a master’s degree in Intelligence and International Relations from Salford University.
Leon Bosch says: “I am both honoured and gratified to receive this medal, not only because of the long history of illustrious previous recipients but also because chamber music has been a central part of my musical life throughout my career – I can remember as a student playing with the Amadeus Quartet and making my first appearance at Wigmore Hall with Maria Joao Pires. I have long believed that chamber music offers the ideal possibility for musicians to express themselves with total artistic freedom, and is one of the ideal ways that classical music has for sharing that sense of freedom with audiences and colleagues alike.”