Peggy Nolan

Peggy enjoys a varied performance career playing with ensembles of all shapes and sizes. She is a member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and regularly performs and tours with other ensembles, including Manchester Collective, Manchester Camerata, and Royal Northern Sinfonia. Peggy can frequently be heard in collaboration with a diverse array of musicians, including recent performances at the BBC Proms, Heidelberger Frühling Musikfestival, Edinburgh International, Cheltenham, Órtús, Killaloe Chamber Music, and Celtic Connections Festivals.

As the cellist of the Eblana String Trio, Peggy has performed widely since 2006 across the UK, Ireland, and further afield. In 2021, the trio released their album, ‘The King’s Alchemist’, to critical acclaim. The album was selected as chamber recording of the month in a 5-star review in BBC Music Magazine and praised for its “splendidly stylish and affectionate performance” (Gramophone). Their second album of string trios by William Alwyn, JB McEwen, and Gordon Jacob will be released in 2025. Peggy is also the cellist of Amika, a string quartet that fuses the craft of chamber music with contemporary techniques and approaches. Amika have collaborated with Jordan Rakei, Rob Luft, Alice Zawadzki, Natalie Williams and Tom Walker, with live performances bringing them to the Manchester, London, and Cambridge Jazz festivals, as well as broadcasts from BBC Maida Vale, Abbey Road and Metropolis Studios and a full-length album Recurring (Live at Kings Place) with Alfa Mist.

As well as RIAM, Peggy is a cello tutor at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and in addition, she teaches for Arco, a distance-learning project that provides string teaching to students in South Africa and India. Peggy is the Course Director of ConCorda Chamber Music Course, and is studying for a PhD in Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music, researching Boccherinian performance practice and creating new recordings and editions of Boccherini’s little-known op.24 and 44 string quartets.