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RCM Community Updates
The latest news from Royal College of Music alumni, staff and students.
ALUMNI UPDATES
NEW RELEASES
Four alumni composers have started their own podcast, Composers in a Jukebox. Levent Altuntas, Darren Sng, Luke Mombrea and Jolene Khor started the podcast to explore media composition and interview industry professionals. The first seven episodes are out now on Spotify and cover various aspects of composing for stage and screen, as well as an interview with Tony Award–nominated composer Lindsay Jones.
Grammy Award–nominated conductor Anthony Inglis has published his autobiography, entitled Sit Down, Stop Waving Your Arms About! The book charts Anthony’s journey from studying at the RCM to conducting many famous orchestras and soloists, travelling the world and working across many genres. The book has a foreward by Katherine Jenkins OBE and is available to buy on Amazon.
Soprano Robyn Allegra Parton has released a new album on Orchid Classics, Burnished Gold. The album explores lieder from 1900s Vienna, including songs by Richard Strauss, Alma Mahler-Werfel, Johanna Müller-Hermann and Erich Korngold, and features RCM Collaborative Piano professor Simon Lepper.
Pianist Melanie Spanswick’s three-book series Women Composers – A Graded Anthology For Piano (published by Schott Music) recently won a Presto Music Award for best ‘New Series of the Year’. Melanie has also written the bestselling three-book series Play it again: PIANO, and her compositions have been included in the Edition Schott Series, where she is one of only a handful of featured women composers.
RECENT PERFORMANCES
Sir James Galway performed alongside American pop superstar Lizzo at New York fashion event the Met Gala. Lizzo is a four-time Grammy Award–winning singer and flautist, and credits Sir James Galway with sparking her interest in learning the flute as a child after hearing The Man With the Golden Flute. They performed a duet of Flight of the Bumblebee at the event in May, which was attended by many of the world’s most high-profile celebrities.
A new musical theatre piece by alumnus composer Alex Ho had its premiere in April at Concertgebouw Brugge as part of All Arias Festival. Untold was co-created with Olivier Award–nominated choreographer and creative director Julia Cheng and explores ideas of belonging in response to the marginalisation of transnational Chinese communities in the west through music and movement. The piece had its Dutch premier at O.Festival Rotterdam in May.
Paul Keohone recently made his professional conducting debut with Mozart's Requiem and Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass with the City of Glasgow Chorus and the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. In November, he will conduct Verdi’s Requiem at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, leading the combined 200-singer strong choirs of the City of Glasgow Chorus and Leeds Festival Chorus with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera.
Three string quartets formed at the RCM – the Oriole Quartet, Marmen Quartet, and current RCM String Quartet Fellows, the Alkyona Quartet – recently visited Melbourne for performances at the Australian National Academy of Music’s ‘Quartetthaus’, a unique, rotating pop-up venue.
Aron Tringali has been the artistic director of the Jorma Panula Foundation and the founder and conductor of Siamo Orkest in The Hague, The Netherlands since 2021. Along with Mozart’s 40th and Schubert’s fifth Symphonies, he recently conducted and played Haydn’s Piano Concerto no 11 in D major with Siamo Orkest.
AWARDS, ACCOLADES AND APPOINTMENTS
Conducting alumnus Nicolò Foron won the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition in March, having competed against 80 other young maestros from across the UK and Europe. As part of his prize, Nicolò will take-up a year-long contract as Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.
This year’s prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Awards saw collaborative piano alumnus George Ireland compete for the Help Musicians Accompanist’s Prize, accompanying vocal alumna Rebecca Leggett in the competition final at Wigmore Hall.
Rebecca was recently announced as one of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s ‘Rising Stars of the Enlightenment’ alongside fellow alumnus Laurence Kilsby. Rebecca and Laurence will embark on a two-year programme for emerging singers, supporting their professional development and including numerous performance opportunities with the OAE.
RCM Opera Studio alumna Julieth Lozano Rolong won the Audience Prize in the 40th annual BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in June. Julieth was one of 16 singers from around the world taking part, having graduated from the RCM with both a Masters and Artist Diploma in Opera in 2018.
Pianist Emily Hoh won the Collaborative Piano Prize at this year’s Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. Emily accompanied current RCM student Dafydd Jones in the Singers Section Final with an ‘impressive performance’ according to the judges. Emily is currently accompanist-in-residence at Westminster School.
Conductor Pablo Urbina took home Third Prize at the Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition in March. The Guardian reported on the final, saying: ‘Pablo Urbina had arguably the hardest task with Sibelius’ Symphony no 3. The organic growth and the work’s obdurate formal puzzles were skilfully unlocked by Urbina, drawing a buoyant response from the players.’
Viola alumnus Nicholas Bootiman has been appointed as section leader for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Nicholas previously held a principal position with the Philharmonia Orchestra for over a decade and enjoys a dual career as a violist and conductor.
The English Symphony Orchestra (ESO) has named Zoë Beyers as its new Principal Artist. Zoë has been the orchestra’s concertmaster since 2017. Her role now expands to include artistic leadership and she will perform regularly with the orchestra as a soloist, as well as directing the ensemble.
The ESO has appointed another RCM alumna as its Artist in Residence: violinist Esther Abrami will feature as a soloist across the 2023/24 concert season and join forces with the ESO Youth Programme to inspire the next generation of musical talent.
Conductor John Sutton was awarded an MBE in the King’s New Year Honours List. John has directed choirs and orchestras since the 1970s and has raised thousands for various charities through his work, including as Musical Director of the Voices for Hospices Choir and Sinfonia.
STAFF UPDATES
FACULTY APPOINTMENTS
Amos Miller has been appointed as Head of Brass, and will take up his post in September 2023. Amos has been Head of Brass at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire since 2018. He is a founder member of internationally acclaimed brass ensemble Onyx Brass and Principal Trombone with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, and has played on hundreds of film soundtracks including Paddington and Harry Potter.
NEW RELEASES AND PERFORMANCES
Piano professor Dina Parakhina’s new CD of Medtner Piano Sonatas has been published by Piano Classics and is available online, including on Spotify and Apple Music. The recording features op 25 no 1, known as the ‘Fairy Tale’ Sonata, as well as Six Fairy Tales op 51.
At Florilegium’s Wigmore Hall concert in April, Professor Ashley Solomon (Chair and Head of Historical Performance) released a new CD, the second recording in a series for Channel Classics using original 18th-century flutes from the private collection belonging to Peter Spohr.
The album includes six flute concerti on six different flutes made of ivory, porcelain and gold, boxwood and ebony. Together with Florilegium, Ashley has recently recorded Volume 3 which will be released in early 2024 and includes RCM alumni Rowan Pierce (soprano) and Agata Daraskaite (historical violin).
Violin professor Madeleine Mitchell’s new album, Violin Conversations, was released by Naxos in June and includes seven world premiere recordings. It features works by RCM professor Errollyn Wallen, the late Joseph Horovitz and alumnus Richard Blackford, and includes Madeleine’s live recording with the late Andrew Ball, former RCM Head of Keyboard, of Rawsthorne’s Violin Sonata for the BBC Millennium series.
Alongside RCM piano professor Nigel Clayton, Madeleine also opened the Easter Festival at St John’s Smith Square on 2 April. The pair also performed on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune, including a new work, dedicated to Madeleine, for solo violin by Michael Berkeley – Notes on the Loss of a Friend: In Memoriam Nicholas Snowman.
Collaborative piano co-ordinator Simon Lepper performed in a recital at the Vocal Arts DC (Washington) with opera singer Elizabeth Llewellyn, featuring songs by RCM alumnus and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, which the pair have also recorded.
RESEARCH UPDATES
Research from the Centre for Performance Science (CPS) continues to explore how music can support new parents. A recent article by CPS colleagues Professor Rosie Perkins, Dr Neta Spiro and Dr George Waddell has been published in Public Health, showing that online songwriting can reduce symptoms of postnatal depression and loneliness among new mothers.
Alongside, research by Caitlin Shaughnessy, Professor Rosie Perkins and Andrew Hall at CW+ (the charity for the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust), has investigated what RCM graduates learnt from taking part in a project offering personalised, live music online to patients on the antenatal wards at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. The research, published in Musicae Scientiae, revealed that this work requires communicative and musical versatility as well as the ability to connect and empathise through music.
Dr Yuiko Asaba recently joined the RCM as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Research Fellow. Yuiko is a tango violinist and her research projects centre on Argentine tango in Japan and China as a window into the rarely investigated East Asia-Latin America musical nexus, bridging dance studies, East Asian and Latin American studies, and migration studies. Her forthcoming book offers the first in-depth study on Japan-Argentina musical connections dating from the 1910s up to the present. Yuiko is also co-leading two research projects that are funded by the European Union.
PUBLICATIONS
Former Head of Brass Peter Bassano has released a new book, Before the Music Stopped, which explores the music profession from 1965 to 2000 and touches on Peter’s days at the RCM as both student and professor. Peter is descended from a long line of prominent Venetian court musicians and delves into his fascinating family history in another of his publications, Shakespeare and Emilia. The book explores the life of his ancestor Emilia Bassano, who was identified as the ‘Dark Musical Lady’ of the Shakespeare sonnets. Both books are available on Amazon, where they have received multiple five-star reviews.
Composition professor Kenneth Hesketh contributed to BBC Music Magazine’s anniversary articles on the composer Henri Dutilleux, published in May. Additionally, an interview with Belgian conductor Erik Desimpelaere will be published in the summer edition of Winds Magazine, discussing the commission of Kenneth’s 2022 work Along Dark Paths and its performance at last year’s World Music Contest in the Netherlands.
Kenneth's contributing chapter for the Cambridge Companions to Composition, Out of one, many, will be released later this year. He was also commissioned to write a fanfare in celebration of the 900th anniversary of St Bart’s Hospital and Church, which was performed at a concert hosted by Simon Callow and the City Music Foundation in June.
The new critical edition of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem has recently been completed, edited by RCM Visiting Research Fellow Michael Musgrave and German scholar Michael Struck of the Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe (JBG). This is the most extensive volume to appear in the new critical edition of Brahms’ works [Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe]. It involved the examination of every source relevant to the publication within Brahms’ lifetime and is the result of many years of collaboration. A copy of the new score is now in the RCM Library for students to examine an extensive example of modern critical editorial scholarship.
NEWS UPDATES
In April, repertoire professor Norbert Meyn hosted German Ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, for a tour of the Music, Migration and Mobility exhibition in the RCM Museum. The exhibition, which ran from January to May this year, explored the lives and legacies of émi gré musicians from Nazi-Europe in Britain.
Vocal Faculty Assistant Olivia Grant completed a cycle ride from London to Brighton in June, raising money for the British Heart Foundation. If you’d like to support her, there’s still time to visit her Just Giving page at www.justgiving.com/Olivia-Grant6.
STUDENT UPDATES
AWARDS, ACCOLADES AND APPOINTMENTS
Second year Masters clarinettist Adam Lee has been appointed Principal Clarinet No 2 of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, taking up the position in July this year. He is also currently on trial with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House for the position of Principal Clarinet.
Doctoral student Juliet Petrus was named a Next Generation Leader by the influential Chinese-American organisation Committee of 100. Juliet is a specialist and trusted Western interpreter of Chinese art song; her research at the RCM focuses on pedagogical methods to address the challenges faced by Western-language speakers learning to sing in Mandarin, and vice-versa. Juliet travelled to New York to receive the award in May.
The recipient of the Alastair Jackson International Opera Award is Australian soprano Georgia Melville, who will join the RCM Opera Studio in September following the completion of her Masters and a summer season with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera chorus. The Award is Australia’s most valuable vocal scholarship and provides financial support for study in the UK for at least one year.
Zone One Brass, formed of RCM students, alumni and freelance players, led by Rich Ward (RCM Junior Department orchestral tutor), won the Brass Band National Championships Regional Contest for London and South Counties, qualifying them for finals at the Royal Albert Hall in October. They also won prizes for Best Trombones and Best Euphonium, and second year postgraduate student Jack Wilson won Best Cornet.
Music Education student Xenia Horne delivered a ten-week project in partnership with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge which was shortlisted for the Family Learning Awards. The project invited new parents and their babies to explore the museum collections through musical play, creating musical journeys and micro songs. Following the success of the project, a further workshop was included in the Cambridge Festival.
PERFORMANCES AND RECORDINGS
Three works by doctoral candidate Jorge Pinto Ramos were performed in Ponta Delgada, Azores in January, and a piece commissioned by Ricardo Pires featured on his newly released album, Windsor Project. Jorge’s piece Keep Up! for alto saxophone and live electronics is part of his research at the RCM, where he explores new methods of orchestration, focusing on the influence of electronics on orchestration practice.
In April, the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Maxim Vengerov, Sandra Lied Haga and RCM violin students Mira Marton, David Horvat, Elif Cansever, Lucilla Mariotti, Deniz Sensoy, Esther Park, Molin Han, Annissa Gybel and Ilai Avni. The concert was a celebration of the music of Brahms and was conducted by Marios Papadopoulos.
Saxophonist Sophia Elger was invited by the Bath Festival Orchestra (BFO) to perform in their B-Side Lunchbreaks concert series at Bow Church in East London. Before performing some of her favourite solo repertoire, Sophia spent time with students from the Bobby Moore Academy. The BFO’s B-Side initiative sees musicians deliver free coaching to local secondary school students, followed by a free concert.
COMPETITION WINS
RCM students had success at the final of the prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Awards, held at Wigmore Hall in April. Masters tenor Dafydd Jones won the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize, while Masters soprano Matina Tsaroucha won Joint Second Prize.
Dafydd will also perform the title role in Albert Herring for Opera North next season, and recently made his international debut at the Bregenzer Festspiele.
Pianist Aidan Chan was awarded the 2023 Royal Dublin Society Music Bursary, the largest annual award in Ireland. The Bursary will support Aidan’s future development and see him perform a solo recital at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris and a concert with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.
RCM ensemble Astatine Trio won the SEAM Prize for commitment to contemporary music at this year’s Lyon International Chamber Music Competition. The Trio is comprised of pianist and cellist Berniya Hamie and violinist Julia Błachuta, who are both third-year undergraduates, and 17-year-old RCM Junior Department cellist Riya Hamie.
The Kleio Quartet, featuring Masters violinist Katherine Yoon and alumna Yume Fujise, won First Prize and the prize for best performance of a commissioned piece at the Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music Competition in Copenhagen. The Kleio Quartet recently held a Residency at Snape Maltings’ Britten-Pears Festival in Aldeburgh and have a series of residencies hosted by the Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam over the next two years.
Mezzo soprano Annabel Kennedy won First Prize in the RCM’s Brooks-van der Pump English Song Competition. Annabel was also recently announced as one of Glyndebourne’s Jerwood Young Artists for 2023, alongside fellow RCM Opera Studio colleague, bass-baritone Jamie Woollard. Jamie will also join the Jette Parker Artists Programme of the Royal Opera House for the 2023/24 season.
