Musicians In Residence at St Jude's

Gabriel Francis-Dehqani

Gabriel has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the UK, Europe, North America and Asia including venues Wigmore Hall, The Arnold Schönberg Center, Conway Hall, St Martin-in-the Field’s, Snape Maltings Concert Hall, The Barbican Hall, The Sage
Gateshead, The National Gallery, Brighton Dome and The Holywell Music Room.

Gabriel was awarded First Prize at the Muriel Taylor Cello Competition in London and the Irish Heritage UK competition, held at Wigmore Hall. He also won First Prize at the 4th Edition of the International Contemporary Music Interpretation Competition (adjudicated by Giovanni Sollima) by the Flavio Vespasiano Foundation and was subsequently invited to perform a recital in Rome, including a world premiere of a piece written for him by British composer Deborah Pritchard.
A keen chamber musician, Gabriel works in the Chamber Music Department at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as Hans Keller Fellows with his multi award winning Quartet, the Elmore Quartet - supported by the Kirckman Concert Society. The Quartet won First Prize at the Royal Overseas League International Chamber Music Competition (2026) and were awarded Third Prize at the prestigious Premio Paolo Borciani International String Quartet Competition in Reggio
Emilia, Italy (2024). The Quartet are excited to release their debut album 'Unfurling' with Rubicon Classics later in 2026. They hold the position of Quartet in Residence at the MusicAbility Foundation in Penzance, where they perform regularly and deliver educational workshops.

Gabriel is currently Musician in Residence at St-Jude-on-the-Hill in Hampstead, London. He has curated a new recital series, called 'Inspire', inviting international artists to perform every month at one of London’s most prestigious recording venues.
He has been invited to attend festivals across the UK and Europe such as the Venice Biennale, the Aldeburgh Festival, Aalborg Kammermusik Festival, The Across Festival, Santander Encounter of Music and Academy, International Summer Academy of the MDW in Vienna, Brussels Cello
Festival, Schiermonnikoog and IMS Prussia Cove. Recent solo performances include Schumann’s Cello Concerto at Cambridge University (St John’s College Chapel), Tchaikovsky’s Rococo
Variations with the Rutland Sinfonia and Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Essex Symphony Orchestra.
Gabriel has a particular interest in contemporary music. He commissioned a Cello Sonata - ‘Murmurations’ - from his dear friend and colleague Will Harmer which was premiered at St-Martin-in-the-Fields in 2024. Gabriel and Will have subsequently given many performances of the Sonata, including in Italy and in Ireland as part of the Drogheda Classical Music series which was broadcast on Irish radio. Gabriel since commissioned Harmer to write him a Cello Concerto which was premiered at Cambridge University in March 2026. Gabriel is an Associate City Music Foundation Artist (2025/26), together with Harmer - they are excited to record ‘Murmurations’ in 2026, along with other arrangements and works by Harmer and Britten.

In 2025, Gabriel performed Boulez’s Messagesquisse for 8 cellos, alongside David Cohen, as part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s Boulez 100: Chamber Concert in London and was a 2024-25 Britten Pears
Young Artist. He has performed recitals, given masterclasses and sat on competition juries across eight cities in China, including recitals at Bechstein Concert Halls in Shanghai and Beijing. Gabriel has won
numerous awards from The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, Help Musicians UK, The Stephen Bell Scheme and the Essex Foundation supporting his studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Louise Hopkins, where he graduated from the Artist Diploma course. Gabriel has performed masterclasses for Gary Hoffman, Steve Doane, Frans Helmerson, Guy Johnston, Louise Hopkins, Alasdair Tait, David Waterman, Ilya Poletaev and Julian Lloyd Webber among others.
Winning the Hall Memorial Prize at the Essex Young Musician Competition and the 2022/23 musician in residence at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, Gabriel has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 numerous times as a soloist and chamber musician (Including solo performances of Kaija Saariaho works and Luigi Dallapiccola’s Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio from memory).
As a founding member, Gabriel enjoys work with the Komuna Collective, a collective of contemporary musicians whose work has been supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, Arts Council England, The Oxford Research Centre for Humanities, PRS Foundation, CRASSH Cambridge and the Nordic Culture Fund. Komuna have performed in venues such as
Electrowerkz London, Classical:NEXT Berlin, Hjorted Art and Music in Sweden, and Cambridge Arts Festival, UK. Their debut album ‘Views from the Real World’ was released in December 2024 followed by a series of launch events in London, Oxford, Norwich and Manchester. He also
performs regularly with the Rothko Collective.
Gabriel has won first prize at the Windsor Festival Composition Competition and was principal conductor of the Durham University Chamber Orchestra, conducting a concert at The Sage, Gateshead with soloist Sir Thomas Allen. Prior to this, Gabriel studied with Guy Johnston and was awarded the Andrew Lloyd Webber Scholarship to Eton College, where he studied with Sue Lowe.
Gabriel read Music at Durham University where he performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, graduating in 2021 with the Eve Myra Kisch Prize for musical excellence.