Current 1st-year student Zany Denyer won 2nd Prize in the Lyon International Chamber Music Competition in April, performing as part of Trio Havisham. Zany has also been selected for the next edition of the Samling Artist Programme.
We were delighted to see four Academy student duos give recitals as prize-winning Young Artists in the Oxford Lieder Spring Festival; Wonsick Oh accompanied by Aron Goldin; Magnus Walker accompanied by Eunji Han; Clara Orif accompanied by Jack Redman; and Angharrad Rowlands accompanied by Joseph Cavalli-Price. Joseph also recently won the Pianist Prize in both the Mozart Singing Competition and the Kathleen Ferrier Junior Competition.
We are pleased to see former students of the Academy's Ensemble Piano course excelling in the professional world. Alum and professor James Baillieu continues to perform in the world's most prestigious venues, and in September he will accompany soprano Lise Davidsen in a recital at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Likewise, Joseph Middleton has recently performed recitals at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Kölner Philharmonie, and in Gramophone Magazine's centenary concert at the Wigmore Hall.
Finnegan Downie-Dear recently made his debut at the Staatsoper Berlin, conducting Janáček's Věc Makropulos. Somi Kim continues to tour with the New Zealand Piano Trio, and has recently released an album, The Earth Child, with soprano Natasha Wilson. Keval Shah is currently a senior lecturer in Lieder at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, and gave a Wigmore Hall recital with soprano Karita Mattila at the end of last year, which received a 5-star review in Bachtrack. Recent graduate Ilan Kurtser, who won the Pianist Prize in the 2021 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, is a continuing Samling Artist.