Staff updates
Share #RCMUpbeat
Alongside their College commitments, RCM professors and staff are involved in an array of performances and publications – read on to find out more.
Performances and recordings
The debut album by The Sabi Ensemble, featuring Historical Double Bass professor Carina Cosgrave, has been given four stars by The Times and is included on its list of the Best Classical Albums of 2025. The album, From The Heart, was given funding by the RCM and is the premiere recording on historical instruments of all the woks on the disc, including alumnus Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Nonet, and two Novelletten by Coleridge-Taylor arranged by the ensemble. Leading up to the launch, the ensemble gave performances on BBC Radio 3 In Tune, at Kings Place as part of Black Lives in Music Classically Black event, and at the Plumstead Peculiars Series.
Visiting composition professor George Fenton composed the score for the The Choral movie, written by Alan Bennett, directed by Nicholas Hytner and featuring Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius; George also appeared on screen as Elgar’s driver. Conductor Natalie Murray Beale (main image) was Music Director and Coach to Ralph Fiennes for the film. Natalie spoke about coaching Cate Blanchett for the film Tár in a previous edition of Upbeat.
Arcadian Opera, conducted and founded ten years ago by RCM vocal professor Justin Lavender, has enjoyed extraordinary recent success, with Don Giovanni at Stowe followed by the world premiere in London’s Bloomsbury Theatre of Nicholas Smith’s new opera The Stone God. Several RCM students and alumni were involved in these productions, notably sopranos He Ming Li and current Masters student Xiaomin Cheng, and tenor Daniel Bell. They had the experience of working with a top London orchestra, the New Music Players. He Ming and Daniel also sang the leading roles in Madama Butterfly in July. The company holds open auditions for paid roles; interested singers may contact Justin or search Audition Oracle. Justin also conducts the Phoenix Singers and Trinity Camerata Orchestra of Oxford. Last Easter’s oratorio was Bach’s Mass in B minor, and featured RCM current students Wenlan He and Joel Robson, as well as alumnus Robert Forrest.
Violin professor Madeleine Mitchell’s London Chamber Ensemble Quartet has recorded an album of Charles Wood string quartets for SOMM, all premiere recordings, for release in spring 2026 to coincide with the centenary of the death of the composer, who was an inaugural scholar at the RCM and later taught Howells and Vaughan Williams. Concerts featuring these quartets include Three Choirs and English Music Festivals in 2026. This autumn, Madeleine is touring the USA, including classes for both violinists and composers in New York, Minneapolis and San Francisco, and giving masterclasses in Ankara with a recital at the British Embassy.
[image2]
Marketing Manager for Events Stephanie Rawlins sang with the Crouch End Festival Chorus in a concert conducted by Sir Karl Jenkins to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his composition The Armed Man. In November, Stephanie also performed a recital of piano duet music at St Peter’s Church in St Albans, with her piano duo partner and former RCM staff member, Emma Adlard.
Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera The Railway Children was recently performed at Glyndebourne and at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, with the cast including soprano and alumna Henna Mun. His tribute to late alumnus Laura Samuel, Laura for string quartet, was recently premiered in Birmingham.
Publications and nominations
[image3]
Former Head of Composition Julian Anderson and RCMJD Composition Teacher Bushra El-Turk were both nominated for Ivor Novello Awards. Julian was nominated in the Best Choral Composition category for Nothing at All and Bushra was nominated for Best Small Chamber Composition for Three Tributes.
Lecturer in Music Education Kirsty Devaney has two book chapters about composing pedagogy published in 2025 editions of seminal music education books: ‘Pedagogies of Composing’ in Debates in Music Teaching and ‘Composing in the Music Classroom’ in Learning to Teach Music in the Secondary School.
[image4]
Piano professor Julian Jacobson has two new publications: FanTango for solo guitar (now in the RCM Library), and his transcription for piano four hands of Reznicek’s overture Donna Diana (Edition Skellton). He spent several weeks in Hong Kong and China last summer giving recitals and masterclasses, and has been invited back to give a complete Beethoven sonata cycle in the Beethoven year of 2027, coinciding with his own 80th birthday.
Recorder professor Sarah Jeffery has published her second sheet music anthology with Schott, My Favourite Melodies for alto recorder and piano. This collection of 14 concert-ready pieces includes a work by alumnus Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Beauty and Song, in its first arrangement for the recorder. Jonathan Frank of the RCM Library was instrumental in providing his expertise in questions of tempo. Sarah has also recently published the official Hal Leonard method for the recorder, the first official recorder method by Hal Leonard that includes access to over 60 video lessons produced by Sarah. The Hal Leonard Recorder Method has been nominated for Outstanding Print Resource at the Music & Drama Education awards.
View this post on Instagram
[image5]
A major output of the RCM’s recent Music, Migration and Mobility (MMM) research project, the book The Glyndebourne Émigrés, with an introduction by Research Fellow Norbert Meyn, has been published by Clemson University Press. The mobile MMM exhibition was featured on a tour in Australia, and recently came to the Bruckner University in Linz, Austria before going to the Mozarteum in Salzburg from 21 November, where Norbert presented two lecture recitals. There was also a concert with music from the MMM project at the University of Bristol on 8 November. The sold-out Mátyás Seiber 120 concert and celebrations at the Hungarian Cultural Centre also featured the MMM project, including the mobile exhibition, and involved RCM clarinettist Christian Hoddinott and recent graduate pianist Sophia Lim.
[image6]
Publications & Content Officer Joanna Wyld wrote programme notes on the music of alumni Anna Meredith (for the Scottish Ensemble) and Elizabeth Maconchy (for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales), and for the BBC Concert Orchestra’s Bridgerton & Beyond night at the Southbank Centre.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Send your updates for the spring 2026 digital edition of Upbeat to news@rcm.ac.uk by Friday 23 January 2026.
.jpg)
