Bex Herman: Cellist
“A poised and committed performer… with a beautiful and expressive sound and a rare communicative quality.”
- Steven Doane (Professor of Cello, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York)
“Compelling heightened attentiveness from their audience, Buta and Herman launched into an exquisite rendition of Bach’s ‘Two Part Inventions’… between the notes communication was not only musical, but also visual with the fleeting smiles and encouraging glances that audiences so love to observe in live performance, suggestive of considerable enjoyment on the part of the performers themselves. This richness of dialogue was even more evident in the Gliere and Kodaly pieces, where extraordinary demands were placed on the performers who delivered these virtuosic compositions with great style and panache. The thunderous applause that demanded several ‘curtain calls’ was fully warranted by this marvellous performance.”
- (Duncan Skene, Chairman of Frome Concerts Group)
© Sussie Ahlberg
British cellist Bex Herman has established a wide-ranging career as a performer of artistic depth and communicative power. After studying with Steven Doane at the Eastman School of Music, Bex continued her training at the Royal Academy of Music with Josephine Knight, supported by major awards from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and Help Musicians UK. On graduating, Bex was awarded the Academy’s prestigious Meaker Fellowship, including the 12-month loan of the 1692 “Segelman” Stradivarius cello. Her fellowship culminated in the UK-premiere of ‘eSACHERe’, the complete set of twelve solo cello works commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich in honour of Paul Sacher, including works by Berio, Boulez, Britten and Lutosławski.
A former Park Lane Group and Concordia Foundation Young Artist, and a founding member of the Castalian Quartet, Bex has performed at many of the UK’s leading venues, including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, and the Southbank Centre, the Edinburgh and Cheltenham Festivals and at venues across France, Germany, Italy, Israel and China. As an orchestral musician, Bex has collaborated with internationally renowned ensembles including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, English Chamber Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony and Concert Orchestras. A versatile and experienced session musician, Bex has recorded regularly at Abbey Road and AIR Studios in London and Trackdown Studios in Sydney for television, film and video game soundtracks. Recent credits include My brilliant Career (Netflix), Frozen Planet (BBC), Mission Impossible 5, Baby Driver, and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Currently based in Sydney, Bex continues to freelance extensively, performing regularly with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia, alongside a diverse portfolio of chamber music and recording projects. Recent highlights include memorised performances of Shostakovich’s 5th and Beethoven’s 9th Symphonies at the BBC Proms in London (2024, 2025), broadcast live on television and radio, European tours with the Philharmonia orchestra and their principal conductor, Santtu Rouvali, and Opera Australia’s harbourside production of ‘Phantom of the Opera’. Forthcoming engagements include cello duo recitals with Sydney-based cellist Eleanor Streatfeidl, Schubert’s iconic String Quintet with the Sydney Chamber Collective, Arensky’s Quartet in A minor with musicians from Opera Australia and the launch of Bex’s solo cello recital series ‘Bach on the Beach’. For more information about upcoming events, please join my mailing list.
My love of chamber music started at 10 - playing duos with a school friend, charging our parents to hear us perform ‘Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ in the kitchen in glitter wigs! Holidays from 10 to 18 were spent at Pro Corda Chamber Music Academy, playing in a beautiful monastic ruin in rural Suffolk, and eating fish & chips on the beach in nearby Aldeburgh. As a co-founder of the Castalian Quartet, I performed at all the major UK venues including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, as well as the Edinburgh and Cheltenham festivals, and internationally in France, Germany, Italy and China.
Whilst navigating a move across the world with our two small children, my partner Richard Waters (principal viola of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra) and I started the Sydney Chamber Collective – a group dedicated to bringing the repertoire we love to unusual spaces and audiences who may not have previously encountered it. At its core, the SCC is about connection — between fellow musicians, between audience and performers, and between the music and the space in which it is heard. Moving away from the ‘us / them’ binary of the traditional concert hall, the SCC invites you to experience the music from within, through informal performances in intimate spaces. Come for the beautiful music, stay for a drink and a chat, leave as friends.
Forthcoming chamber concerts include a celebration of didgeridoo-player William Barton at the New South Wales State Library, SHIR (the Australian Jewish Music Festival) at the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Recital Hall, and the SCC’s launch in November.x
To be the first to hear about news / forthcoming events, please join my mailing list.