Alumni updates
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All the latest updates from our alumni community, together with our pick of social media posts.
Pavel Kolesnikov
Pianist Pavel Kolesnikov has won the Critics’ Circle Young Talent Award 2019 for piano. The awards celebrate the year in which artists make their UK career breakthrough.
Amit Yahav
Amit Yahav, doctoral research and piano graduate, has released a new CD, Fantasies, on the GENUIN label. The CD features fantasies by three contemporaneous composers: Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann and highlights the different approaches taken by each composer in approaching the fantasy genre.
Douglas MacMillan
Douglas MacMillan’s book The Flageolet in England, 1660–1914 was published by Boydell and Brewer in October 2019. The book is partly based on study he carried out during his Doctor of Music (DMus) at the RCM.
Marcos Fernández
Composer Marcos Fernández has released his third album Guitar Underscore on all major music platforms. Featuring 12 original works for guitar, the album features a blend of contemporary, country, celtic, classical and film music, and many other musical influences. It was produced by his label Piano Underscore in Barcelona during lockdown. Marcos won the Spanish Association of Symphony Orchestras / BBVA Foundation Composition Competition prize of €18,000, which was used to produce the album.
Nicola Woodward
Flautist Nicola Woodward has made a new recording of Charles Koechlin’s Les Chants de Nectaire op 198, released by Naxos in August.
Louise Alder
Soprano Louise Alder has performed the role of Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Bavarian State Opera.
With trepidation/joy I am currently preparing to leave home for Figaro @bay_staatsoper, rehs starting Tuesday. Mandatory Covid test today. Fingers crossed these performances continue & more countries join in safely finding a way forward for sustainable live performance. pic.twitter.com/QYxVh6s7PG
— Louise Alder (@louisealdersop) September 6, 2020
Milly Forrest
Soprano Milly Forrest performed at The Chiswick Festival in August in a programme of Handel, Mozart, Delibes, Flanders and Swann. She was accompanied on piano by RCM graduate Ian Tindale.
Vasco Dantas
Pianist Vasco Dantas received a rave review from Gramophone Magazine for his latest release Poetic Scenes for Piano. The CD features work by Schubert, Da Motta and Burnay.
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Iona Allen
Violinist Iona Allen teamed up with pianist Elli Welsh for an online recital titled Celebrating Beethoven 250, to mark 250 years since the composer’s birth. Ticket sales went directly to the Tait Emergency Relief Fund for Australian & New Zealand Artists.
Thomas Erlank
Tenor Thomas Erlank has joined the Opernhaus Zürich Ensemble following two years on the Young Artist Programme. He will be performing Arbace in Mozart’s Idomeneo and Toby Higgins in Weill’s Mahagonny, among others.
Xia Leon Sloane
RCM Junior Department graduate composer Xia Leon Sloane has appeared on BBC3 Radio 3.
We're looking forward to hearing #RCMJD alum composer @XiaLeonSloane discussing their musical likes & inspirations on @BBCRadio3's This Classical Life with @JessGillamSax tomorrow �� listen from 12.30pm! https://t.co/GYjsxXnlKX
— Royal College of Music (@RCMLondon) August 28, 2020
Ana Fernandez
Spanish soprano Ana Fernandez Guerra has joined the Köln Opera Studio.
Joseph Horovitz
Composer Joseph Horovitz’s one-act comic opera Gentleman’s Island received a ten-performance run in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA from 9-18 October. The two-man cast was accompanied by the Utah Symphony. Since its premiere in 1958 the opera has had numerous performances in Britain and abroad including at the Cheltenham Festival, Tanglewood USA and on Belgian TV.
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Adrian Lenthall
Adrian Lenthall has released an album of Christmas music for clavichord entitled Heaven & Earth in Little Space. The disc contains music from six centuries, including premieres by Geoffrey Allan Taylor and is played on four different clavichords.
Mark Viner
Pianist Mark Viner has released his eighth disc on the Piano Classics label, and the fourth in his survey of the complete piano music of Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813—1888). The CD was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine in July.
Shiry Rashkovsky
Up Close and Musical Festival, directed by Shiry Rashkovsky, took place in November in front of a socially distanced audience at the Fidelio Orchestra Café in Clerkenwell. This year’s festival featured performances by Gabriel Prokofiev, Abel Selaocoe, Misha Mullov-Abbado Group, Chloe Hanslip, Alasdair Beatson and Trio Klein; workshops with composer Nimrod Borenstein, author Jessica Duchen and entrepreneur Raffaello Morales; and a one-woman opera by Heloise Werner.
Dillon Jeffares
In July violinist Dillon Jeffares saw his work become available on Spotify and Apple Music. He is a recording artist managed by Ulysses Arts and has released three albums so far.
Michael Allis
Professor Michael Allis, with co-editor Dr Paul Watt (Monash University), has published The Symphonic Poem in Britain, 1850—1950 (The Boydell Press). He has also co-edited (with Dr Watt & Dr Sarah Collins) The Oxford Handbook of Music and Intellectual Culture in the Nineteenth Century, published by OUP.
Manu Brazo
Saxophonist Manu Brazo has appeared on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.
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Jack Hancher
In September, Jack Hancher won the Zagreb Guitar Competition. He is also a EuroStrings Artist for 2020/21.
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Elena Toponogova
Pianist Elena Toponogova has been a 2020 virtual artist-in-residence on the Russian Art+Culture platform. She has explored a variety of topics including combining drawing and music in a piano class, as well as music by Nikolai Medtner and Alexander Gretchaninov.
Romain Malan
The Institut français hosted a socially distanced and livestreamed concert in October featuring Romain Malan. He gave the UK premiere of Femme le soir by Betsy Jolas with pianist Anne Lovett.
Alice Kent
Double bassist Alice Kent has produced a YouTube video series for teaching children about music. Alice’s Musical Galaxy can be seen on her YouTube channel and Facebook page:
�� Episode 2, Magic Soundabout! ������ �� something is coming! ⬇️subscribe to my YouTube channel...
Posted by Alice's Musical Galaxy on Monday, 26 October 2020
Leon Keuffer
In October, Leon Keuffer performed the fifth movement of a concerto he wrote during lockdown as part of an evening of music commemorating the Holocaust. Leon was joined by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch – the German cellist and Holocaust survivor – for the concert in Salzburg’s Kongresshaus.
Richard Blackford
Composer Richard Blackford has written a new piece for RCM violin professor Madeleine Mitchell in support of the Help Musicians charity. Worlds Apart for solo violin was included on the eclectic album Many Voices on Themes of Isolation put together by alumna Amelia Conway-Jones. Madeleine also recorded a video of the work for Bitesize Proms.
Samson Tsoy
Pianist Samson Tsoy performed at a socially distanced concert at Bold Tendencies, a venue in a car park in Peckham:
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