Kate Gould gained an entrance scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music with David Strange in 1990 and went on to study in Berlin at the Hochschule der Künste with Wolfgang Boettcher. During this time she was selected for the BBC Young Artists Forum and Tillett Trust schemes and became a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra.
At the Academy she also formed the Leopold String Trio which went on to sustain a distinguished international career until their swan song in 2012 at London’s Barbican Centre - Tippett’s Triple Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. After their hugely successful debut recordings of the complete Beethoven String Trios for Hyperion Records they soon became BBC New Generations Artists and ECHO Rising Stars, as well as gaining a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. Kate curated a prestigious 3-year series of twelve concerts at Wigmore Hall, inviting regular collaborative artists including pianists, Paul Lewis and Marc Andre Hamelin, and the trio went on to win the 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Chamber Music.
Meanwhile, Kate also became a member of the London Bridge Trio (formerly London ridge Ensemble), founded by its pianist, Daniel Tong. They were joined by violinist, David Adams, in 2016 and continue to maintain a particularly strong reputation in the recording field. Their name reflects an admiration for English music of the early twentieth century, which forms part of the group’s varied repertoire and is represented by their hugely successful Frank Bridge debut recordings. Thought provoking pre-concert talks and lecture recitals are something the trio is also increasingly known for, as their collaboration with Richard Wigmore continues, exploring together the influences, connections and history of masterworks for the genre.
In 2019 and 2020 the London Bridge Trio released Volumes 1 and 2 of ‘The Leipzig Circle’, celebrating unheard female composers from the 1800 by recording the complete trios of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn and Robert and Clara Schumann (SOMM Recordings). The discs have so far garnered high praise: The Telegraph called Volume 1 “a total delight… The performers do the works proud,” and Gramophone Magazine stated, “Everything here is played with sensitivity and conviction”.
Back in Autumn 2015 the trio had released a disc of Dvorak Piano Quartets on the Champs Hill label, with guest violist Gary Pomeroy of the Heath Quartet. This album also received rave reviews in Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine (double five stars) and the Observer. In 2008 the ensemble founded its own festival in Kate’s hometown: the Winchester Chamber Music Festival. The festival welcomes capacity audiences each year in the first weekend of May and has secured its reputation for stylish programmes involving exceptional international artists including the Heath and Castalian Quartets, Esther Hoppe, Krzysztof Chorzelski, Sara Bitlloch and the Gould Piano Trio.
Its tenth anniversary was celebrated by the commissioning and premiere of ‘Hidden Agenda’, by Colin Matthews for the LBT. They were due to give the London Premiere at Wigmore Hall in March 2020 before it was cancelled due to the pandemic. Kate recently became the festival’s sole artistic director but the London Bridge Trio continues to be central to the programming.
She is also a director of the Ironstone Chamber Music Festival in north Oxfordshire alongside her sister, violinist Lucy Gould. Kate recently performed at the Aldeburgh Festival and Sacconi Folkstone Festival and regularly appears at chamber music festivals in Peasmarsh, Penarth, Corbridge, Wye Valley and the Festival de los Siete Lagos, Argentina. In 2019 she performed with Jack Liebeck at the Laeszhalle, Hamburg, and took part in an Offenbach theatre project on gut strings at the Aussenspielstatte des Kolner Schauspielhauses, Cologne.
In February 2020 Kate performed a recital of Beethoven cello sonatas with Martin Roscoe at The Castle Hotel, Taunton for Martin Randell. This programme will be repeated in the autumn of 2021 at the Queens University lunchtime recital series, Belfast.
Kate became a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in 2000 and is often invited as guest principal cellist of English Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC orchestras, as well as ‘Les Siecles’, Paris, on gut strings. Kate has been a professor of cello at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and coached on the ‘Cadenza’ music course, Purcell school, the Bergamo Chamber Music Course, Italy, and coached the cello sections of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales and Ulster Youth Orchestra.