Students and Alumni of the Piano Department enjoyed continued success this spring term, with major competition awards and a debut recording on Linn records.
Advanced Diploma student Ignas Maknickas won the First Prize at the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition in the keyboard section, and will compete for the Gold Medal on Wednesday 19 June at the Wigmore Hall.
Congratulations to Clara Siegle, who recently won the Harriet Cohen Early Keyboard Prize and has just travelled to China for a solo concert tour.
Third year undergraduate Milda Daunoraite joined Hertfordshire Philharmonia and conductor Edward Longstaff in a performance of Beethoven Piano Concerto No 5 ‘Emperor’ on 9 March.
Xiaowen Shang’s debut recording Music of Silence, bringing together Spanish music of the 16th, 18th and 20th centuries, is released on Linn Records on 12 April. Listen to one of the tracks here. Xiaowen is also featured as a Rising Star in May’s edition of the BBC Music Magazine.
The Academy’s Wigmore Hall Piano Series continued on 13 March with Tracy Tang’s recital of Prokofiev, Scriabin and Valentin Silvestrov. Further details, and future recitals can be found here.
It’s piano concerto exams season. All our students’ performances are open to the public in Duke’s Hall on 18 and 19 March, featuring concertos by Brahms, Rachmaninov and Beethoven to Busoni and Bartók.
Advanced Diploma pianist Junyan Chen is appearing at the Wigmore Hall on 26 March with the Nash Ensemble in a concert devoted to Harrison Birtwistle. More details can be found on our 'What's On' page.
We’re delighted that two of our recent alumni, Isata Kanneh-Mason and Ariel Lanyi, have both been honoured with an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARAM) this year.
Postgraduate student Kasparas Mikužis made his debut with the Academy Symphony Orchestra in Duke's Hall on 9 February, performing Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto op.18 under the baton of John Wilson.
Sin Erica Sou, a first year undergraduate pianist, has won the Young Artist category in the 3rd Premia International Young Artists Competition and will perform at Carnegie Hall in July.
Watch out for details online of the 2024 Summer Piano Festival, which this year runs from 12-14 June, with performances from over fifty pianists.
