Programme for Season 2019
This season has now concluded. We include it for your interest.
Maxim Calver
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Rob Burton
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Isata Kanneh-Mason
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Sunday 7 April 2019 at 4pm
Maxim CalverCello
Gorka Plada-Giron Piano
Programme
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Artist BiographyBritish cellist Maxim Calver made his concerto debut in Symphony Hall, Birmingham as part of the Grand Final of BBC Young Musician 2018. His performance of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC 4, was praised for its ‘natural ease’ and ‘emotional lyricism’. Earlier in the competition he won the Strings Category Final performing works by Lutoslawski, Brahms and Stravinsky. Highlights this season include a performance of Brahms’ Double Concerto in Cadogan Hall, London with Tianyou Ma, finalist of the International Menuhin Violin Competition 2018, and recitals throughout the UK and Guernsey. Maxim has performed at Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and BOZAR (Brussels). Festival appearances include the Gstaad Menuhin Festival in Switzerland, Southwold Arts Festival and the Wimbledon International Festival, where his performance of Delius’ cello sonata was singled out for its ‘depth of tone and passionate intensity’ (Planet Hugill, 2014). Maxim plays an Alberto Aloysius Blanchi cello, dated 1906. Born in 2002 in El Puerto de Santa Maria (Spain), Gorka Plada-Giron showed his interest in music at a very early age. He began teaching himself the piano from the age of five, before joining the local music school three years later where he received piano tuition from Maria Jesus Duran. In 2016, Gorka joined the Yehudi Menuhin School where he studies piano with Marcel Baudet and was awarded a scholarship by the UK’s Music and Dance Scheme. Gorka has performed throughout Spain, UK, Germany and Holland participating in festivals including the Wimbledon Festival, Segovia Music Festival and Maryat Players Festival. He has had considerable success in numerous competitions, concerts and festivals as both soloist and chamber musician. He was awarded 1st prize and Chopin prize in the Julio Casas International Piano Competition, 2nd prize in Enschede Piano Competition 1st prize and audience prize in Lorenzo Palomo chamber music competition, 3rd prize in the Intercollegiate Beethoven competition and 1st prize in Santa Cecilia Piano Competition. Gorka has received masterclasses from Robert Levin, Cordelia Hoffer, Paul Roberts, Claudio Martinez Menher and Angel Sanzo, among many others.
Programme Notesare available here
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Sunday 28 April 2019 at 4pm
Rob BurtonSaxophone
Christine Zerafa Piano
Programme
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Artist BiographyHailing from a farming family in Cambridgeshire, saxophonist Rob Burton won the Woodwind Category Final of BBC Young Musician 2018 at the age of eighteen. He went on to secure a place in the Grand Final at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, where he performed with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, broadcast live on BBC 4 and BBC Radio 3. Recent highlights include performing the Glazunov Saxophone Concerto after winning the Silk Street Sinfonia Young Artists Concerto Competition, and recitals at the Cheltenham Festival and the Charles Wood Festival in Armagh. Rob studies Classical Saxophone at the Royal Academy of Music with Simon Haram and Huw Wiggin. He was a pupil at Hinchingbrooke School in Huntingdon alongside studies with Paul Stevens (saxophone) and Derek Hannigan (clarinet) at Junior Guildhall, where he was a Sax.co.uk Scholarship holder. Rob has also achieved Grade 8 Distinction in Saxophone, Clarinet, Piano and Recorder.
London-based Maltese pianist Christine Zerafa has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in various venues and festivals in Malta, the United States and across the United Kingdom. She has frequently appeared at major London venues including Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John Smith Square, St Martin in the Fields, and she has performed live on BBC Radio 3. Christine has been recipient of various awards including the Bice Mizzi National Competition, RNCM Clifton Helliwell Prize, the RAM Scott Huxley prize for piano accompaniment, Schumann Lieder accompanist prize, the Eric Brough Prize and the John B McEwen Prize. She is a Park Lane Group Artist and a Tunnell Trust Artist. Christine gained a Master of Music in solo performance from the Royal Northern College of Music where she studied with Norma Fisher and Paul Janes, after which she moved on to study with Andrea Lucchesini at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Florence. Passionate about collaborating with singers and instrumentalists, Christine then read for a Master of Music degree in piano accompaniment, which she recently completed with distinction at the Royal Academy of Music under the tuition of Michael Dussek, Malcolm Martineau and Ian Brown.
Programme Notesare available here
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Sunday 12 May 2019 at 4pm
Isata Kanneh-MasonPiano
Programme
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Artist BiographyIsata Kanneh-Mason is twenty-one years old and is an undergraduate at The Royal Academy of Music, studying piano with Carole Presland, having been awarded the prestigious Sir Elton John Scholarship. She performed with Elton John in Los Angeles in 2013. Isata was in the Piano Category Final of The BBC Young Musician 2014, winning The Walter Todds Bursary for the most promising musician before the Grand Final. She has won The Royal Academy Iris Dyer Piano Prize four times and won the Mrs Claude Beddington Prize for outstanding recital results in her second year as an undergraduate at The Royal Academy. She has performed around the UK and abroad, with concerto appearances, in chamber ensembles and in solo recitals, including at the Wigmore Hall, The Royal Festival Hall, St Martin-in-the -Fields, The Duke’s Hall (Royal Academy), The Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, Kings Place, London. She has performed several concerti, including Mozart K466, Haydn Hob XVIII, Grieg Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No 2 and Schumann Concerto. In 2014, Isata performed Mozart’s Triple Concerto with two of her sisters. She has given solo recitals at The Hebden Bridge Music Festival, Belper Music Festival, Lincoln Music Festival, Grantham and Newark Music Club Recital Series. She performed in the Piano Series at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall, The Colour of Music Festival in Charleston, USA, Yellow Lounge, Amsterdam, in The Barbican Sound Unbound Festival, The Elgar Room at The Royal Albert Hall, Cheltenham Music Festival, Leicester International Chamber Music Festival, the Caribbean, The Cayman Islands and Canada. She plays Errolyn Wallen’s Concerto Grosso with Chineke! Orchestra in Autumn 2017, at Kings College Chapel, Cambridge, Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, and St George’s, Bristol. Isata will play a piano recital for the Rising Star series in Portland, Oregon, USA, in January 2018. Isata has performed several times on BBC television and radio, including Radio 3 In Tune, The Proms Extra, Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, Al Jazeera TV, BBC World Service, Channel 4, The One Show, the BBC4 documentary: Young, Gifted and Classical, ITV Born To Shine, BBC2 Classroom Heroes, and BBC Young Musician.
Programme Notesare available here
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