Quanta, Piano Trio
October 9th, 2026
The Programme
The Piano Trio Quanta is renowned for its versatility, combining classical repertoire with a variety of styles to produce entertaining and lively programmes. This they have done for their SHP concert, giving us a varied repertoire alongside the wonderful Trio in D minor by Mendelssohn.
Concert Programme
Coming Soon
Programme Notes
Coming soon.
Programme Notes Copywrite Alistair Jones, 2026
The Artists
Quanta
Tobie Medland - violin
Shirley Smart - cello
Ben Smith - piano
Quanta is a piano trio exploring great masterworks of the piano-trio literature, interspersed with improvisatory performance based on a variety of sources, including classical works, folk music and jazz as well as free improvisation and original works.
Shirley Smart is known as a keen educator. She is a Professor of Improvisation and Musicianship at the Royal College of Music in London, and also teaches on the Popular Music course at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. She lectures for both City and Kent Universities in Music History, Performance Practice, Jazz History, Composition, Orchestration and Arrangement, and teaches Improvisation and Musicianship at the Royal College of Music Junior Department.
Tobie Medland: after training in composition at the Royal College of Music and the University of Leeds, Tobie followed a rather unconventional path in Jazz as his training was gained traveling the North of England busking. Since then he has performed across the country at venues including the Birmingham Symphony Hall, St. John's Smith Square and Leeds Town Hall. He has also toured Europe performing leading Sarajevo jazz club 'Jazzbina' and the Mostar Gipsy Festival. He is the director of the big London Gypsy Jazz festival and a record label.
Ben Smith is a pianist and composer specialising in contemporary and experimental music. Hailed as one of “the finest new-music pianists in London” (Tempo) and a player of “extraordinary precision and insight” (The Guardian), he is in demand both as a soloist and chamber performer (An Assembly, Apartment House, Athelas Sinfonietta, Explore Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Riot Ensemble, Uproar Ensemble). Known for daring and virtuosic performances which traverse the extremes of the contemporary repertoire, he has given dozens of world premieres across the UK and Europe (Aldeburgh Festival, BBC Total Immersion, Cafe OTO, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, inn:pust festval, London Contemporary Music Festival, Musicon, Ny Musik i Birkerød, Spitalfields Music, Transit: Festival voor nieuwe muziek, and at London venues Ambika P3, Barbican Hall, Hackney Round Chapel, Kings Place, Milton Court Concert Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Wigmore Hall). He is currently working as Musical Director on Thespians (UK Tour) and Associate MD on Operation Mincemeat (Fortune Theatre). In recent years he has conducted premiere performances of Sarah Angliss’s Giant (Royal Opera House; Aldeburgh Festival), and Alastair White’s RUNE, (Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival). Recording projects include works by Leo Chadburn (library of nothing), Nomi Epstein and Paul Newland (another timbre), Brian Ferneyhough and Alastair White (métier), and the complete piano works of Evan Johnson (all that dust). Ben was a Junior Fellow at Guildhall School of Music & Drama from 2020-2022, where he previously studied with Laurence Crane, Rolf Hind, and James Weeks.