Duo Karadys

Carol Hubel-Allen (viola)
Alan MacLean (piano)

This duo, formed in 2009, have been gaining a wide reputation for their warm and sensitive playing and for bringing out the full potential of this combination of instruments.

Carol Hubel-Allen received her musical training at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Sidney Griller, Gwynne Edwards and Max Rostal, and was invited to play in master classes with Louis Persinger, Bruno Giuranna, Sandor Vegh, and György Kurtag.  After a spell with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra she joined the Pfeifer String Quartet in Stuttgart, touring extensively throughout Europe, also giving recitals with piano and appearing as a soloist with orchestras in Switzerland and Germany. During an extended stay in the US, she was invited to become a member of the Princeton Chamber Orchestra and the Chanterelle String Quartet.  More recently, she joined the Dehler String Quartet of the Staatskapelle, Weimar. As well as being part of Duo Karadys she is also a member of the Bochmann String Trio. Carol holds a number of awards from the Royal Academy of Music and the Colmar International String Quartet Competition in France, and she has made numerous radio and TV recordings and discs.

Alan MacLean is a graduate of The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where he studied with the Hungarian pianist Bela Simandi and received the award for the most outstanding student in his final year. Further study followed with internationally renowned pianists including Karl Ulrich Schnabel.  Although principally a pianist Alan also studied cello and singing and trained as a conductor under the tutelage of David Lumsden. Much in demand as a chamber musician, he has played with many of the country's leading instrumentalists and he premiered Malcolm Arnold's 'Trio Bourgeoise' and a recent arrangement of John Field's Rondo in A flat for Piano and Orchestra. In 2016 he travels to China for the Hong Kong Schools' Music Festival and will be on the jury for the 2016 Edinburgh Festival Concerto Competition. He is based in Cheltenham, and now freelance, and has had over twenty years' experience as Head of Keyboard Studies at The Cheltenham Ladies' College.