Anna le Hair: Accompanist 2007–2022

Anna le Hair Anna Le Hair joined us as our accompanist in spring 2007, and continued to support the Choir until her retirement at the end of the 2022 summer season. Her final formal contributions were two virtuoso solo performances at our July concert that year.

Anna started playing the piano as soon as she could reach the keys. She gained an honours degree in music at Edinburgh University, and her postgraduate studies were at the Royal College of Music, London.

Anna had a busy and varied career as a performer, teacher, accompanist, ABRSM examiner, adjudicator, and conductor. Engagements included recitals, both solo and as chamber musician and accompanist, in many venues in London, including St Martin-in-the-Fields, St John's Smith Square, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. She also performed in numerous other venues around Britain and abroad, including a concert tour to New Zealand in 2014 with the violinist Arwen Newband.

Anna gave performances of several piano concertos and performed at many festivals including Edinburgh and Buxton, where she was nominated for the title of ‘Performer of the Fringe’, as well as Spain, Croatia, and Italy. She taught piano and accompanied at St Albans School, and she also had a thriving private teaching and coaching practice at her home in Tring.

She ran the successful `Piano and More' concert series at the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Tring, and was a founder member of the Icknield Ensemble, and of the Icknield and Arensky Trios. She was also a member of the Pisces Ensemble, based in North Wales, with whom she gave a well-received concert at the Criccieth Festival in June 2019, and she completed her first international examining tour for ABRSM in summer 2019 to Malaysia.

Details of concerts and other activities can be found on her website, www.annalehair.co.uk.