Canadian cellist, Garwyn Linnell, studied at the University of the Arts in Essen and recently completed his Masters Degree at the Royal Academy of Music. He has had the opportunity to perform as a soloist and chamber musician in venues across the UK and Europe with highlight performances at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague, Muth KonzertSaal Vienna, and Vialte Festival in France. Garwyn is a keen chamber musician who plays with the Salwa Quartet, and members of the Sinfonia Cymru whilst enjoying collaboration with dancers, improvisers, poets and jazz musicians.

Beatrice Nicholas is a solo pianist and chamber musician. Highlight venues include the Wigmore Hall, Cartier Foundation in Paris, Kings Place, Leeds Town Hall, Snape Maltings, and Edinburgh Queen’s Hall. As well as being a solo Artist, Beatrice is a member of the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble and enjoys collaboration with a variety of opera singers and instrumentalists. Beatrice is also a composer and arranger who has received commissions from the Nottingham Chamber Music Festival and Dark Design Graphics Company. Her work as a composer has been featured on BBC Radio 3 and she was showcased by the British Black Classical Foundation as featured composer for Black History Month in 2021. The Zeitlin & Nicholas Duo include her original compositions and arrangements in their repertory.

Sally Stocks was born in England and participated in several masterclasses with James Galway before entering the Royal College of Music where she studied flute with Christopher Hyde-Smith and Graham Mayger. She then embarked on a career as a soloist and a chamber musician before emigrating to Australia. She was appointed as Professor of Flute at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and both performed and recorded for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
She was later appointed Principal Flute in the Las Palmas Symphony Orchestra, in Gran Canaria before returning to England in 1992. Since her move back to the UK, she has been performing regularly with other international Chamber musicians and as a soloist in various concerto performances. She has also broadcast live for Classic-FM with pianist Alan Brown.
In 2019 she performed for the third time with organist Thomas Trotter in Birmingham Town Hall and then returned to Australia to perform the same programme in both Sydney and Newcastle NSW with the organist Peter Guy. Highlights from these performances which were recorded live are now available on both iTunes and Apple music.
Sally has also recorded with Harpist Hugh Webb (‘Back to Bach’) and with Paul Turner on Prologue. Their recording ‘ Flute Fantaisie’ received a top three star review from Classic-FM.

Just wonderful and so very uplifting. It calmed my busy day. A very special man who speaks with his hands!” (Sheila Harrod, Patron of the Old Town Festival)
Pianist Paul Turner is a widely experienced soloist and chamber music player renowned for his sensitive playing “…superbly partnered by Paul Turner’s sensitive and alertaccompaniments…that sixth sense of timing which is the true accompanist’s particular gift”(Eastern Daily Press). He excels in a wide range of genres as demonstrated in recent events, which include: performances of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F; his National Theatre debut with Maria Ewing in a celebration for the life of Sir Peter Hall; the Ralph Vaughan Williams festival with Jack Liebeck and members of the Sacconi Quartet; Kings College Cambridge with Nicholas Daniel during Easter week; Ligeti ‘Hommage a Brahms’ with Martin Owen; recording with Miranda Dale for the Proust Society and a new collaboration with BBC Young Musician of the Year finalist, saxophonist Robert Burton.
“For his part, Turner offered…intricate piano writing rendered with exemplary clarity and poise” (Richard Whitehouse). “Turner…impressed with a spectacular performance, demonstrating his astonishing abilities as an accompanist” (Surrey Advertiser).
“A wise and sensitive pianist” (Gower Festival). “Thank you Paul for a truly wonderful concert! Your playing was amazing and beautiful, and it was a joy to be so close to it! I do hope we’ll see you again soon!” (Lucy Hollins, conductor).

Hailed by the London Evening Standard as a ‘prodigy, of awesome technical fluency backed by exceptional artistry’, Nicholas Walker possesses a rare combination of talents combining sensitivity with ‘the flair of a full scale virtuoso and a sparkling intelligence’ (BBC Music Magazine).
He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won all the major awards for both piano and composition, and subsequently at the Moscow Conservatoire.
While still a student in Moscow, he won the First Newport International Piano Competition and has since played with many British Orchestras, including the City of Birmingham and National Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, the London Festival and New Queen’s Hall Orchestras, the Philharmonia and the BBC National Symphony Orchestra of Wales. As well as performing in all the major London concert halls, he has played in North and South America, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Scandinavia, Australia and Russia. He has recorded for BBC Radio 3, Cirrus, ASV, BMG Arte Nova, Chandos, Toccata Classics and Naxos Grand Piano. Equally at home in chamber music, he is sought after as an imaginative and sensitive accompanist, and his CD with Lydia Mordkovitch of Russian violin music was Daily Telegraph CD of the week.
Although Walker’s performances of Beethoven have brought him special notice, and his performances of the lyrical and late romantic piano music have also been singled out for the highest praise, it is for his championing of the cause of the neglected leader of ‘The Mighty Handful’, Mili Alexei Balakirev, that he is best known. Described by the Financial Times as ‘the nearest thing to a natural Balakirev performer’, Walker’s two discs of Balakirev piano music for ASV received great critical acclaim, and he has also received high praise for his performances of other Russian composers, including his live recording of the Liapunov Sonata on Danacord, described by Jeremy Nicholas as ‘thrilling… a tour de force’
His now complete series for Naxos Grand Piano is however unique, in that it introduces music that has never before been performed or published, including a substantial sonata and works that Nicholas has finished off himself. All the CDs garnered enthusiastic reviews, and CD3 was CD of the week on Musiq3. James Harrington of the American Record Guide has called them the “reference set”; Damian Thompson, writing in the Spectator, said that the series “has to be heard to be believed”, while Jeremy Nicholas in the Gramophone described the playing as “bravura with integrity”.
Nicholas’s next recording project is a double CD of all the Liszt etudes and the Sonata in B minor.

Defined by the late Aldo Ciccolini as “an artist we will hear about”, Luca Gliozzi is a versatile musician. Luca studied piano in M° Daniela Caratori class at State Conservatory “Ottorino Respighi” in Latina from the age of 8 and graduated with a score of 10/10, “Magna cum Laude”. He continued his studies with Rustem Hayroudinoff at the Royal Academy, graduating with first class honours. He is now pursuing a Masters degree in piano at the Royal College of music with Dina Parakhina. He has also studied conducting with with. Peter Stark and Dominic Grier, and is presently a student of Colin Metters.
Luca has received four 1st prizes in international piano competitions: “Lia Tortora” (2008, Latina), the National Piano Competition “Città di Rocchetta”, (2009, Rocchetta al Volturno), the European Music Competition “Città di Moncalieri”, (2011 Moncalieri) and the National Piano Competition “Pietro Montani” (2015, Lodi). Luca has had the pleasure of playing in classes with great musicians such as Colin Metters, Aldo Ciccolini, Cristopher Elton, Roberto Prosseda, György Pauk, Leslie Howard, Piero Rattalino and Emanuele Arciuli. Luca’s most notable appearances feature concerts in Wigmore Hall’s “Learning season”, “Società Umanitaria dei Concerti” in Milan, “Festival Pontino di Musica” in Latina and “Ciampi Pianoforti” in Rome. His interest in making music with others led him to the found the Audentia Ensemble in 2019.

The first prize winner of the Moscow Mayor Grants Competition in 2019 and a laureate of the International TV Competition «Nutcracker» Katya Grabova graduated with honours from Gnessin Music School in Moscow, Russia, where she studied with professors Tatiana Zelickman and Boris Berezovsky.
Katya has been rapturously received as soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and Lviv Chamber Orchestra «Academia» performing with maestros Fabio Mastrangelo and Igor Pilatyuk.
Recent recital appearances include concerts at the Memorial Museum of Alexander Scriabin; the Great hall, the Rachmaninoff hall and the Small hall of Moscow Conservatory; the Tchaikovsky concert hall in Moscow; the Shanghai Concert hall and the Wuxi theatre in China; the Lielais Dzintars concert hall in Latvia and many different concerts halls in United States of America, Israel, Austria, Spain, Germany, Poland and Slovakia.

In 2021, Ariel Lanyi won third prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition, and was a prize winner in the inaugural Young Classical Artists Trust (London) and Concert Artists Guild (New York) International Auditions.
Over the last year Ariel has made his debut at Wigmore Hall and participated in the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, alongside renowned artists such as Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss.
His recording of music by Schubert for Linn Records was released, and he gave live concerts (for release online) for the Vancouver Recital Society in Canada and the Banco de la República in Colombia. As soloist he performed Brahms Concerto No.2 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Concerto No.2 at the Royal Academy of Music.
This season Ariel returns to give performances in the Miami Piano Festival and at Wigmore Hall, as well as recitals in Rome and across the UK, and performances with orchestras in Israel and in the US, playing concerti by Mozart and Brahms.
Ariel has performed widely in Europe, previous highlights including recitals at the deSingel Arts Centre in Antwerp (stepping in for Till Fellner), Salle Cortot in Paris and a performance of Mozart’s Concerto, K.491 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Conductors whom he has in the past collaborated with include Yi-An Xu, Peter Whelan, Andrew Manze, and Trevor Pinnock. He regularly appears in concerts broadcast live on Israeli radio and television and on Radio France.
Born in Jerusalem in 1997, in 2021 Ariel completed his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Ian Fountain, having studied with the late Hamish Milne. Prior to this, he studied at the High School and Conservatory of the Jerusalem Academy of Music, first with Lea Agmon, later with Yuval Cohen. Whilst there, he also studied violin and composition.
An avid chamber musician, Ariel has collaborated with leading members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, as well as with eminent musicians such as Maria João Pires, Marina Piccinini, Charles Neidich, and Torleif Thedéen. Festival appearances include the Hvide Sande (Denmark), Ravello (Italy), Ausseer Festsommer (Austria), Bosa Antica (Sardinia) and Israel Festivals.
Ariel has received extensive tuition from eminent artists such as Robert Levin, Murray Perahia, Imogen Cooper, Leif Ove Andsnes, Steven Osborne, and the late Leon Fleisher and Ivan Moravec. Awards include 1st Prize at the 2018 Grand Prix Animato Competition in Paris and 1st Prize in the Dudley International Piano Competition, as well as a finalist award at the Rubinstein Competition.
In 2012 he released Romantic Profiles on LYTE records, an album featuring music by Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and Janáček. Ariel is a Countess of Munster Recital Scheme Artist.

British Soprano Rachel Ridout is currently studying her Opera Masters at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig under the tutelage of Carola Guber. Her studies are generously supported by the Countess of Munster Trust. She holds a First-Class Honours degree from the Royal Academy of Music and was awarded the Van Smith Prize, 2021. She studied with Mary Nelson and James Baillieu.
During the 2021/22 season Rachel was as a Young Artist at the International Lied Festival Zeist and at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival as a part of Silvana Bazzoni Bartolli’s Bel Canto Meisterklasse. She also made her debut at Oxford Lieder Festival and was the recipient of the Hester Dickson Duo Prize for Oxenfoord International 2022. As passionate song singer Rachel has also performed at the Victoria International Arts Festival and has participated in masterclasses with Elly Ameling, Nicky Spence, Robert Holl, Wolfgang Holzmair, Helmut Deutsch, Graham Johnson, Hans Eijsackers, Joseph Middleton and Malcom Martineau. Rachel looks forward to the release of her debut recording on a CD of the complete Goethe songs by Hugo Wolf commissioned by the bicentenary at RAM.
Opera roles include Belinda from Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” in the HMT Leipzig Studio Production, Erste Knabe in the Royal Academy Opera Production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Olympia in BYO’s Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman. In opera scenes Rachel has performed the roles of Norina (Don Pasquale), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni).
During her time at RAM Rachel performed regularly as a part of the Academy Voices and Bach the European concert series singing under the likes of Masaaki Suzuki, Trevor Pinnock, Eamonn Dougan and Iain Leddingham. She also performed the world premiere of Emma Ruth- Richards’ song Red Anemones, written as one of the 200 Pieces project commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music for their bicentenary celebrations.

British mezzo-soprano Olympia Hetherington is fast establishing herself as an exciting new talent in the Italian operatic world.
Since moving from London to Tuscany in 2020, she has immersed herself in the Italian operatic tradition and begun to perform widely throughout Italy and abroad. She can be heard regularly at concerts in Lucca, Forte dei Marmi and Florence, and has also made recent appearances in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
This year she appeared on Rai television performing arias by Verdi in a theatrical retelling of the composer’s life. Recent roles include Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Zita (Gianni Schicchi) and Zia Principessa (Suor Angelica) for the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca.
She holds a scholarship for 2022/23 at the Accademia di Montegral, where she studies under the supervision of renowned Austrian conductor, Gustav Kuhn.

After reading Classics at St John’s College, Cambridge, British tenor Xavier Hetherington took his masters degree at the Royal College of Music as a Their Serene Highnesses Dr Prince Donatus and Princess Heidi Von Hohenzollern scholar. He graduated in 2020 with distinction and moved on to the Mascarade Opera Studio (MOS) in Florence, Italy. After nine months in Florence Xavier was accepted into the Centre de Perfeccionament at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, and he has just come to the end of a 6 month period there. Xavier has benefited from the generous support of the King-Farlow Trust, Mr Simon Groves, Mr and Mrs McGowan Stuart and Mr John Rae and is an Opera Prelude Young Artist. He studies with James Platt and Christine Cairns.
Recent engagements include Shepherd and cover Orpheus (Monteverdi) and Mini Vixen for Opera North, Tenor solo Singalong Messiah (Reisopera), Lieutenant Kotler A Child in Striped Pyjamas (Echo Ensemble), Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall (Scratch Concerts), concerts with Opera Prelude, Spell Book & Shepherd La Liberazione Di Ruggiero Dall’isola D’Alcina and covering Ferrando Cosí fan tutte for Longborough Festival Opera, an opera gala at the 20th anniversary of the Encuentro de la Música in the Palacio de Festivales, Santander; Lensky Eugene Onegin, Tebaldo I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Don Ramiro La Cenerentola in a scenes showcase at La Fenice in Venice with MOS; the tenor in the trio from Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia and concerts with Opera Prelude and for the Royal Philharmonic Society. Xavier has enjoyed several years of concert and opera singing in the United Kingdom and abroad singing at halls such as St John Smith Square and Wigmore Hall and with conductors such as Dame Jane Glover, Robin Ticciati, John Lubbock and Rafael Payare.
Further operatic engagements include Orfeo in Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo at the Minack Theatre Cornwall, Torquemada in the RCM’s production of Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole and singing in the Glyndebourne chorus in the festival of 2019.

Ambrose Connolly is a lyric baritone. He graduated from University College London with a BA in Russian and French before moving to Russia to study Opera at the Kazan State Conservatoire under the tutelage of Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Laider. He was the winner of the 2020 Serebranie Rosi International Opera Singing Competition. Ambrose has recently completed a Masters in Advanced Vocal Studies at the Wales International Academy of Voice in Cardiff, under the direction of Dennis O’Neill OBE. He was one of eight young singers selected for the Glyndebourne Academy in 2021. Ambrose, a pupil of Della Jones, is supported by the Dennis O’Neill Foundation and Christopher Ball.
In 2022 Ambrose sang the title role of Eugene Onegin with Bath Opera, as well as the role of Germont in North Wales Opera Company’s production of La Traviata. He is engaged to sing as a soloist in La Misa Del Valle with Royal Seville Symphony Orchestra. At the end of this year Ambrose will sing the baritone solos for Brahms’s Requiem with the Gower Choral Society and Elgar’s Coronation Ode with Trowbridge Symphony Orchestra.

Nicholas Walker See Wednesday 14th June 2023