Celebrating Success

Providing our dedicated students with the skills to achieve their best is the top priority of the Royal College of Music. We are immensely proud to celebrate their successes both at home and abroad.

This year Martin James Bartlett, Benjamin Britten Piano Fellow for 2020-21, was awarded First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York and Dmitrii Kalashnikov won First Prize at the final of the Jaques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition at Wigmore Hall. In an impressive year for the Keyboard Faculty, Victor Maslov shared First Prize at the Second International Rachmaninoff Competition in Moscow, Thomas Kelly won the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe Senior Intercollegiate Piano Prize and Dominic Doutney won First Prize at the Royal Over-seas League (ROSL) Annual Music Competition Piano Final. In addition, Daniel Floyd was appointed Bert Allwood Organ Scholar at Alexandra Palace, and Junior Department pianist Clara Sherratt won the Junior Intercollegiate Competition – at 15, Clara was the youngest participant. Flautist Sirius Chau won the Woodwind and Brass Prize at the ROSL Competition, clarinettist Carlos Caballero won a place in this year’s European Union Youth Orchestra and Matt Glendening played both Principal Clarinet with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Guest Principal with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Opera House with Sir Antonio Pappano. From the Composition Faculty, Owen Ho jointly won First Prize at The Association of English Singers & Speakers Song Writing Competition for Composers and the Arcubus Ensemble Call for Scores 2020, while Edwin Hillier was the winner of the Electroacoustic/ Sound Artwork category at the Scottish Awards for New Music. Lara Poe was commissioned by the Santa Fe Music Festival to write a piece for the Young Composers String Quartet Project and also an orchestral piece for The Sibelius Festival’s Nursery Garden concert. Vocalists had a successful year too, with Annabel Kennedy winning First Prize in The Association of English Singers & Speakers Courtney Kenny Award Final, as well as Second Prize in the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards at Wigmore Hall, where Rebecca Leggett won the Audience Prize. Jessica Cale won Second Prize in the International Voice of the Future Competition at the Llangollen Eisteddfod. Other successes included Louise Goodwin being selected as Principal Timpani for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and cellist Tamaki Sugimoto being chosen for the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Foyle Future First Scheme. Avi Taler was awarded the Bob and Beryl Harding Bursary for Young Conductors, giving him the chance to work with the Havant Symphony Orchestra.

Opposite RCM vocalist performs in class

HEALTHY PERFORMER

The Healthy Conservatoires network grew out of the pioneering research project Musical Impact (which ran from 2013 to 2018). Driven by a clear need and demand to support performers’ health more effectively, it aimed to promote knowledge and good practice in the performing arts nationally. Healthy Performer builds on that, with follow-on funding of £100,000 awarded by the AHRC. The 12-month project is supported by the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM) and Conservatoires UK (CUK) and will extend the reach of its research to include music, dance, drama, physical theatre and circus arts. Twenty five short films will be made, to enable performing artists, and those who support them, to engage with potentially career- and life-altering knowledge on health and wellbeing.