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Our students have had a busy start to the academic year, with success stories across the College. Read on for a selection of their achievements.
Awards, accolades and appointments
Bassoonist Emily Ambrose has been awarded the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Emerging Musician Fellowship, following alumna Méline Le Calvez last year.
Trombonist Robyn Anderson will join the Karajan Academy in January 2025, gaining mentorship, lessons and performance opportunities from the legendary Berlin Philharmonic.
Harpist Tannaz Beigi won the RCM Concerto Competition and performed the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Concertino with the RCM Philharmonic to a sell-out audience in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall.
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Mezzo soprano Lily Mo Browne was awarded the Sarah Harrison Prize at the Hurn Court Opera Singer of the Year Competition in collaboration with the Grange Festival. Lily also won First Prize in the Association of English Singers and Speakers senior competition, together with countertenor alumnus Richard Decker who came third and won the Rodney Gibson Early Music Prize. Alumna Emily Jennings also received Second Prize, making this a clean sweep for the RCM.
Olivia Da Costa (cello), Emmanuel Webb (violin) and alumni Kei Yin Lui (bassoon) and Joe Smales (trombone) have been selected to join the new cohort of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Foyle Future Firsts.
Ezra Escobar won both the Performer and Composer Prizes at the RCM Contemporary Competition.
Siping Guo has been offered the Principal Bassoon position in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
Rianna Henriques been selected via peer review to join the GRAMMY Recording Academy Class of 2024 as a Professional Member. Rianna has also recently returned from playing flute, clarinet and alto and soprano saxophones in a two-month show run of Pericles with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, transferring to the Shakespeare Chicago Theatre.
“Being mentored by IDAGIO still feels like a dream”
— Royal College of Music (@RCMLondon) June 21, 2024
Find out more about final year Master’s student Ian Lim’s experience of a new initiative between the Royal College of Music and @idagio_official https://t.co/ls8qfVcTRE https://t.co/5gif4ejrpB
Lucy Holmes has won a place on the Britten Sinfonia’s Opus 1 Composition Scheme.
Kian Hsu has been made the Percussion Fellow on the Philharmonia’s Instrumental Fellowship Programme for the 2024/25 season, and has been selected to be part of the English National Opera Evolve Scheme.
Doctoral composition student Mingdu Li recently won the prestigious Mendelssohn Scholarship.
Harpist Ian Lim is being mentored by the IDAGIO classical streaming service following an initiative between the Royal College of Music and IDAGIO to guide the next generation of rising classical musicians. Ian commented that the experience ‘feels like a dream’.
In August, Daniil Margulis was awarded joint First Prize at the Second International Double Bass Competition in Belgium held at the Alden Biesen Castle.
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Soprano Henna Mun has been awarded the 2024 John Christie Award at Glyndebourne Festival. Henna covered Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare in the Festival and also performed alongside Andrea Bocelli at BST Hyde Park during the summer.
Soprano Natalka Pasicznyk won the Dean and Chadlington Singing Competition in June.
Nathan Perry won the RCM Double Bass Prize, at which alumnus Mingze Li was highly commended.
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Doctoral student Zsombor Tóth-Vajna was awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit by the president of Hungary and the Medal of the Castle of Buda in celebration of his musical activities and research into the field of early Hungarian keyboard music.
Carys Underwood won both the RCM Cello Prize and Unaccompanied Bach Prize, with Nok Him Chan and Layla Ballard both highly commended.
Alisa Zaika won First Prize in the New York Cantori competition.
The Vox Quartet (Niamh Adams, Emily Ames, Katharine Wing, Catherine Cotter) were named the 11th recipients of the Boconnoc Music Award, which came with a week-long residency of concerts on the Boconnoc estate near Lostwithiel.
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Performances, recordings and initiatives
Pianist Louis-Victor Bak recently released his first album, featuring music by Debussy and Chaminade, on the Indesens-Calliope label and with the support of the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni and The Robert Anderson Research Charitable Trust. See Louis-Victor in action in our Upbeat video performance of ‘Mars’ from The Planets, with Ayane Nakajima.
Trumpet player Katherine Bannister played the Last Post to a live audience of over 50,000 people at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and to a BBC TV audience of well over a million.
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Soprano Madeline Boreham (main picture) made her debut as Mimi in La bohème at English National Opera, on the strength of which she was asked to perform the role for the rest of the run.
Shing-Hong Chow performed in violin professor Madeleine Mitchell’s Red Violin Festival in October.
Earlier this year, Sony Classical announced the exclusive signing of pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason for her first recital album, to be released in spring 2025.
Trombonist Meggie Murphy has been performing with a number of professional ensembles, including playing bass trumpet in Wagner’s Ring Cycle for Longborough Opera. She is also one of the LSO Conservatoire Scholars.
Cellist Madelaine Napier performed in the three-week run of the immersive theatre show BOUND, which featured her own improvisations and compositions. Madelaine has also organised a series of charity concerts to raise money for important causes, and to create a platform for herself and fellow RCM students. The series includes a concert in aid of Crisis on 30 November at St Luke’s West Holloway Church.
Gwydion Rhys’ Five Quartets for flute, viola, harp and percussion – with which he won the Main Composer’s Medal at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in May 2023 – received its world premiere earlier this year, as part of the Bangor Music Festival in North Wales.
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Oboist Hannah Seymour is a co-director of EMPOWER: Women Changing Music, which recently launched its website and first composition competition ’OpusHER’, an award for emerging women composers.
Trumpet player Stone Tung recently had the opportunity to conduct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Brass Ensemble.
The RCM String Orchestra was invited to travel to Athens to perform at the Herodes Odeon Atticus in October, performing alongside RCM soprano Matinas Tsarouha and alumna and pianist Tatiana Papageorgiou in arrangements of Chopin, De Falla and Mozart accompanying the story of Chopin and Sands, who were played by famous Greek actors.
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Send your updates for the Spring 2025 digital edition of Upbeat to news@rcm.ac.uk by Friday 17 January 2025.
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