Harriet Rayfield

First Violin, Board Member

Member since 1995

‘I was fortunate enough to be one of the first LSO String Experience graduates in the 1990s, taken from the Royal Academy initially to ‘experience’ some real rehearsals and concerts with the LSO. I had a wonderful time and was asked if I’d audition for the vacancy in the Second Violin section that year. The rest is history …’

Having begun the violin at the age of seven, Harriet Rayfield boarded at the Purcell School of Music from age twelve and progressed as a scholar to the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with the late Howard Davis (Alberni Quartet). Whilst there she formed the Hellier String Quartet, which remained together for eight years. She won many of the Academy’s violin and chamber competitions and later the quartet studied for four months in Banff, Canada, before they returned as quartet in residence at Aldeburgh.

Harriet has freelanced for all the major ensembles and orchestras in the UK, becoming a member of the LSO in 1995. She is extremely grateful to be playing on the LSO Endowment Trust’s Rugieri violin.