Elliott Perks
Elliott grew up in Surrey, UK where he was home educated with his siblings until the age of nine. In 2001 he was awarded a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he studied with Suzie Meszaros, Rosemary Warren-Green and Loutsia Ibragimova on the violin until 2008, when he changed to first study viola. Elliott was a foundation scholar at the Royal College of Music in London where he studied with Andriy Viytovych.
On graduating from the RCM, Elliott joined the Maxwell String Quartet with which he won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in 2017. Since then the quartet has toured internationally, including the Amsterdam String Quartet Biennale, Stavanger Festival, Trondheim Chamber Music Festival, Schiermonnikoog and Wonderfeel Festivals in the Netherlands, Lammermuir Festival and Music at Paxton in Scotland. Its début tour of the USA in January 2019 garnered critical acclaim from the New York Times (“eloquent performers who bring the same sense of charisma and sense of adventure to their programming”), and performing to sold out venues in New York, Florida, California and Washington. They have since played in over 30 states. The two CDs released by Linn Records, featuring string quartets by Haydn alongside the quartet’s own compositions, based on Scottish traditional folk music, received glowing reviews from international press.
Elliott has taken part in numerous concerts as a soloist and chamber musician, performing in numerous venues around the UK, including The Wigmore Hall, The Royal festival Hall, The Royal Albert Hall, The Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Purcell Room, Sadlers Wells, Bradford Cathedral, Snape Maltings, Dorking Halls, The Cadogan Hall and several concerts in the Menuhin Hall. Whenever possible, Elliott joins forces with his siblings Oscar and Ursula to perform under the banner of ‘The Perks Ensemble’.
In 2018, Elliott released his first album, ‘Märchenbilder’ with guitarist, Tom Ellis, which features transcriptions of music by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf and Tchaikovsky, themed around Germanic text. This music was later toured with the Images Ballet Company, with Elliott involved in the choreography process working closely with Jennifer Jackson.
For the past eight years, Elliott has enjoyed developing his career as a teacher, working with Violin and Viola students at the Yehudi Menuhin school alongside Chamber Music coaching.
Elliott plays a J.B Vuillaume viola from 1852, on loan from a very generous benefactor, to whom he is incredibly grateful.