Category Archives: Alumni

Interview with Laura Selby

Image may contain: 1 person, on stage and playing a musical instrument

This interview took place online on 13 August 2020 between City’s Head of the Department of Music, Dr Ian Pace, and BMus graduate Laura Selby.

Ian Pace: I want to introduce you to Laura Selby, who graduated from the BMus course in 2015, and now works as a Production Manager and Music and Sound Editor for the leading composer-led studio organisation Brains & Hunch. Here is Laura’s website – https://laurakrselby.com/ and here is that for Brains & Hunch – https://www.brainsandhunch.com/ .

Laura, you’ve gone onto a wonderful career since being at City. What are your most abiding memories of your time with us?

Laura Selby: There are so many to choose from but particular memories would be the Christmas Cabarets, a time we had to celebrate our department as a whole and felt like one big family enjoying our passion of all things musical together, with wine. Of course.
Another was being the leader of the orchestra in my final year, a tricky year for me but the department was so supportive, I was able to still achieve my absolute best despite circumstances.

IP: That’s fantastic – which pieces were played by the orchestra when you were leader?

LS: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, an absolute favourite especially the 2nd movement. It was fantastic having the opportunity to play such a beautiful piece at the LSO St Lukes.

IP: What do you remember in particular in terms of the modules you took during your study?

LS: Particular modules that stood out for me were performance, audio art and techno culture and composing for moving image. I was able to move my instrumental performance to a standard I had not expected to obtain coupled with learning how to apply my playing and understanding to the industry of music production and sound art. Such a broad array of skills to explore.

IP: Were such things as audio art, techno culture and composing for the moving image previous interests, or things you first started to explore at City?

LS: They were as I have always enjoyed experimenting with creating recordings from sounds around me. The modules helped me focus that in useful applications as well as inspiring me further for more abstract creations.

IP: How do think your perspective on music, and things musical, changed from when you started at City until when you left?

LS: Massively and is still constantly evolving. I think it helps open up new ideas and genres/ concepts that previously were just not on the radar of possibility. By the time I left I think my experience left me with the freedom to go make my own way with the skill set to apply in any direction I decided to go.

IP: Could you elaborate a little on some of those ideas and genres/concepts?

LS: David Dunn was a composer who really pivoted my interest in looking at environments in a new light, how deeply he thought about concepts regarding the world around him and the way he elevated these through compositions interacting with different settings. Primarily using music as an intermediary between humans and their environment.

IP: What are some of the skills you developed during your time at City which you have gone on to use in your professional life?

LS: Sound recording, mixing and editing in both Logic and ProTools are used most days in my creative work for Brains and Hunch and freelance projects. Other skills from managing the orchestra sections when I was leader are always applicable when liaising with clients and musicians who come into the studio for sessions. Critical thinking and listening for producer roles when feeding back on music/ sound work or communicating a new idea. Many!

IP: What would be your advice to anyone who is thinking of studying music at a higher education level?

LS: Have an open mind to what you can take from your time at City and take as many opportunities to utilise the brilliant advantages studying music in London brings, like the lunch time/ evening concerts which are attended by industry professionals (they’re so good!) never too soon to network. And most importantly make as much music with your fellow peers, make relationships as these are the people who you may well work with later on or get opportunities with. Use this opportunity to get creative, experiment with ideas and make mistakes 🙂
Good luck!!

IP: Laura, thank you so much for doing this interview today! Where would those reading this be best to look for samples of the types of projects on which you are working at present?

LS: Pleasure! Yes check out Brains and Hunch’s site to see all the projects that come through the studio and on my site my recent personal project More Than Concrete made for The Albany is a great example of what you can just get on and do if you have an idea!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8TLo7mYYhKg

Interview with Honey Rouhani

Image may contain: Honey Rouhani Barbaro

This interview took place online on 13 August 2020 between City’s Head of the Department of Music, Dr Ian Pace, and BMus graduate Honey Rouhani.

Ian Pace: I am very pleased to introduce you all to distinguished British-Iranian soprano Honey Rouhani Barbaro. Honey graduated from the BMus course at City in 2011, and since has won various prizes and pursued an important career as an opera singer, singing such roles as Despina in Cosi fan tutti, Mimi in La bohème and Tosca in the opera of that name. Her website is below.

http://www.honeyrouhani.co.uk/about/4578003998

Honey, welcome! It’s great to see you again. Could you tell me something about your time at

City, and what this has meant in terms of your subsequent career?

Honey Rouhani: Hi Ian, so wonderful to be speaking with you here. And as always a pleasure to be an alumni of City University. I was on the BMus performance degree at City and throughout the 3 years I spent there, I learnt more about music than I ever did before and after my time. As an Opera Singer I soon realised that just having the knowledge of singing and performance is not enough to have a successful career. I learnt so much about the history of music, not only Western Classical music but different ethnic groups and cultural backgrounds. In particular I loved the Ethnomusicology and Music reception.

IP: How did the study of those different musical traditions affect how you thought about music as a whole?

HR: Coming from a different culture myself, it was so wonderful to learn so much about other cultures and their importance in what we call World Music today. The importance of connecting our world with the power of Music was the most important part of my learning.

IP: Tell me about the study of music reception for you?

HR: Music reception focused on the various events that occurred after a particular piece was premiered or performed for the first time. I was so fascinated to learn that all these events and issues like people leaving the concert hall, the social conventions etc were not just particular to one genre but could be seen in a spectrum of all musical genres. I in particular remember Bizet’s Carmen and Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

IP: Two very different examples! But both with their own sets of conventions for both musicians and listeners, in terms of listening and wider behaviour?

HR: For example, in terms of Bizet’s Carmen, the convention of going to the theatre to see something was a family event. People would bring picnics and enjoy family time whilst seeing something on stage. However this was the first time at the Opéra Comique in Paris that there was a murder scene, and people left the theatre. Many believe that this was one of the reasons that Bizet died 3 months later, as he was terribly heart broken after his premiere.

IP: Whereas if they had been at the main Opéra (which now combines the Opéra-Garnier and Opéra-Bastille) in Paris, murders on stage would have been commonplace. If only Bizet had had an inkling that his opera would go on to be one of the most successful of all time.

HR: Absolutely. now every time I perform Carmen I have that in mind.

IP: Tell me some more about your experiences of performance at City?

HR: I had a great time being a part of both the Chamber choir and the a cappella group led by the wonderful Alexander Lingas called Civitas. Both taught me so much about musicianship, tone, and controlling vibrato.

IP: The music you would have sung with Civitas would have been of a wholly different nature to what you do now as an opera singer?

HR: Totally. We mainly worked on Gregorian chant and polyphony from the Greek orthodox church.

IP: A repertoire which is likely to be quite unfamiliar to many at undergraduate level, I would think? But what attracted you in that music?

HR: I learnt so much from this group, about sight-singing, being able to sing in an ensemble without necessarily being on the melody line and learning to hold your tune whilst 15 other singers are singing different lines around you. I loved the music because it was sacred.

IP: Fantastic. What do you think are amongst the most important skills worth developing during university-level musical study?

HR: The history of Western Classical Music just changed my life. I still have all my notes as well as the big book with all the post its that I can refer to anytime I want. In my career there has been many times that I’ve wanted to understand the reasons behind a composers thinking, to be able to interpret it in the right way. And I’ve gone back to my book and my notes and almost every time solved the issue.

IP: You could certainly have studied at either a university or a conservatoire. What made you choose a university department?

HR: I really recommend broadening ones horizons to different genres. When I first came to see City on an open day, I saw myself living the next 3 years of my life at City. I had heard so much about City university’s music department and had a couple of friends who had already studied there. I also wanted to have an academic knowledge as well as performance knowledge and I truly got the best of both worlds

IP: What would be your advice to any at age 18 nowadays who is thinking about pursuing musical study further?

HR: I think the best advice to the young students would be to really understand their love for music and why they are pursuing it as opposed to pursuing it as a hobby or simply as a means to gain a bachelor’s degree. The music business is not a joke, it’s full of hard work and frustrating moments, so you really need to love it

IP: Could you give us some links to hear you sing (it would be great to talk about some concerts, but understandably most performances are on hold for the majority of musicians during lockdown)?

HR: Sure, you can find some recordings on my website www.honeyrouhani.co.uk, as well as IGTV on Scenarialtd page. My performance diary for 2020 has a big red cross on it at the moment. However I’m lucky enough to be teaching and hopefully inspiring the next generations.

IP: Honey, thank you so much. We look forward to welcoming you back to City soon!

HR: It was absolutely my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and good luck to all starting this year.

Music Alumni Concert and Reception Evening

The City Music Department’s annual alumni event was held on Friday 24^th May 2019, as part of the Summer Sounds Festival 2019.

The evening began with a concert featuring four of our outstanding pianist alumni, each of whom are variously established as concert soloists with international careers, as award-winning creative musicians, and as rising stars.

First on stage was Ben Smith (BMus, 2015), performing the extraordinary extended piece Phrygian Gates (1977-1978) by John Adams. This was followed by Ikuko Inoguchi (PhD, 2016) playing a series of pieces by Japanese composer Karen Tanaka (b.1961): Who Stole the Tarts? (2016), Water Dance I. Very lightly with flow (2011) and Crystalline II (1995).

Robert Mitchell introducing his set

Jazz pianist Robert Mitchell (BSc, 1993) then performed a solo set, followed by Clare Hammond (DMA, 2012) who completed the concert with a series of pieces around the theme of ‘bees’: Felix Mendelssohn’s The Bee’s Wedding (Op. 67 No. 4), Rimsky-Korsakov’s (arr. Rachmaninov) Flight of the Bumblebee and Ewan Campbell’s Flight of the Killer Bee (2013). Clare also performed the piece A Garland for Anne (2003) by City Professor Emeritus Rhian Samuel, who was also in attendance at the concert.

Clare Hammond

Dr Clare Hammond and Professor Rhian Samuel

The evening ended with a drinks reception for alumni, final year music students and current and former staff.

Many thanks to all who attended, and to the alumni office for organising the evening, and of course to our amazing pianist alumni!

Current second and final year students enjoying the reception!

African Dance and Drumming Ensemble at the London Marathon

City University Music Department’s African Dance and Drumming ensemble performed at the London Marathon on Sunday 22nd April 2018, under the leadership of Barak Schmool.

The ensemble performed at the north end of Southwark Bridge from 11.30am to 4pm, to encourage the runners and entertain the crowd.

This is the 6th year that the ensemble has done this, joining other students from BIMM, TrinityLaban, the Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall and Middlesex University, as well as City music Alumni, to form a samba bateria (percussion section) of some 60 players accompanying vocals and guitars in a wide repertoire of carnival style music from Brazil and elsewhere.

City Music Alumni Evening at the London Coliseum

The Music Department’s annual alumni reception took place on the evening of Monday 5th March 2018 at the London Coliseum (English National Opera). It was attended by about 60 City music alumni, final year students, and music staff, including several visiting lecturers and instrumental teachers.

The evening began with a fascinating historical tour of The Coliseum, including the auditorium, which was being set up for the forthcoming season of La Traviata.

The Head of Department, Dr Laudan Nooshin, then welcomed everyone, following which three of our female alumni spoke, to mark the coinciding of the event with International Women’s Week and to celebrate the many achievements of our female alumni. The speakers were: Karen Mason (Music, 1988) Managing Director at Novalex, Laura Selby (Music, 2015) Studio Manager at Brains and Hunch and Fiona Baldwin Tanner (Music 1998) Director Founder of Oyster Opera.

We were then treated to performances by alumni and current students: Annie Yim (DMA alumna and the Minerva Trio with Michal Cwizewicz on violin and Richard Birchall on ‘cello); Ben Schoeman (piano, DMA alumnus); Sasha Karpeyev (piano, DMA alumnus); and Emilie Parry-Williams (voice, 3rd year BMus). Appropriately for International Women’s Week, the performances included a movement from Clara Schumann’s piano trio.

A very enjoyable evening and a great way to stay in touch. You can see more photos on the City Alumni Facebook page.

Laura Selby

Karen Mason

Fiona Baldwin Tanner

Drs Lingas and Antonopoulos in Romania at the Iași Byzantine Music Festival

“Vasile Alecsandri” National Theatre

During the last weekend of September 2017 Alexander Lingas and Spyridon Antonopoulos joined their colleagues in the vocal ensemble Cappella Romana for the inaugural Iași Byzantine Music Festival. The group was invited to Romania to perform its new programme of chant for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross as celebrated in the medieval rite of Hagia Sophia, a product of its participation in the research project Icons of Sound based at Stanford University. Held before a capacity audience in the “Vasile Alecsandri” National Theatre, the concert began with hymns in Arabic and Greek sung by the choir of the Hamatoura Monastery in Lebanon. Dr Lingas also joining esteemed colleagues in the field of Byzantine music as a member of the festival’s Scientific Committee, an academic and artistic advisory board.

A video of the complete performance is available here: https://doxologia.ro/evenimente/video-concert-extraordinar-de-muzica-psaltica-la-teatrul-national-din-iasi

Alexander Lingas directs Cappella Romana in Iasi

Spyridon Antonopoulos chants with Mark Powell and David Stutz

Dr Spyridon Antonopoulos leads Psaltikon ensemble on Scandinavian tour

Psaltikon in Copenhagen

Dr Spyridon Antonopoulos, Honorary Research Fellow at City, recently led the vocal ensemble Psaltikon on a three-concert tour in Scandinavia. Psaltikon, founded by Antonopoulos in 2010, is a Boston-based vocal ensemble specializing in Byzantine chant and the music of the Eastern Mediterranean. For this tour, Psaltikon was joined by City University Reader in Music, Dr Alexander Lingas, along with Antonopoulos and six other singers. Prior to the tour, Dr Antonopoulos and Dr Lingas each gave papers at a Symposium on Religious Poetry and Performance at Uppsala University.

The tour program, entitled “Evenings Lights in Miklagård”, refers to the Scandinavian Viking name for Constantinople, the center of the world in the ninth century, when Halfdan the Viking carved his name into the parapet of the upper floor in Hagia Sophia’s southern gallery. The program explored chants which Halfdan might have heard while he inscribed his runes into Hagia Sophia’s marble. Central to the program were two kontakia, melismatic chants (whose text was originally composed in the sixth or seventh century), inscribed in the Psaltikon, the Constantinopolitan chant book for virtuoso soloists (the complementary Asmatikon contained the choral repertories). The kontakia were transcribed from a fourteenth century by the renowned musicologist Dr Ioannis Arvanitis, while the rest of the program editions were prepared by Dr Antonopoulos.

The tour’s first venue was the famous anatomical theater of the Museum Gustavianum. The ensemble then sang a concert for an audience of over 100 at Sofia Kyrka in Stockholm, before embarking on a five hour train through the Swedish woodlands to Copenhagen, where they were treated to a tour of the collections at the Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, led by Dr Christian Troeslgård.

The MMB, founded in the 1930s at the University of Copenhagen, is one of the most important research institutes for Byzantine musicology. The tour closed with a concert in the beautiful acoustic of St. Thomas in the Frederiksburg neighborhood of Copenhagen.

Ian Pace concerts in London, Oxford, Leuven, Prague, Basel, Lisbon, Autumn 2016 – and with City graduate Ben Smith

Department of Music Lecturer and Head of Performance Ian Pace has an active concert schedule over the course of Autumn 2016. A key focus of this is his ongoing series of recitals of the complete piano works of Michael Finnissy, to celebrate the composer’s 70th birthday year. He gave the fifth concert in the series at City on September 27th, featuring Finnissy’s complete Gershwin Arrangements and also his two Concertos for Solo Piano, one of which (No. 4 of his Piano Concertos in general) is a work of maniac virtuosity, of which Ian’s 1998 recording has previously won much acclaim. The next concert in the series takes place on Thursday October 27th, at the Picture Gallery, Egham, as part of Royal Holloway’s Finnissy at 70 Series, and will feature a range of highly diverse pieces including Kemp’s Morris, for pianist wearing Morris bells, Finnissy’s three transcriptions of Strauss-Walzer, his Hiroshige-inspired White Rain, the dance/quasi-improvisatory virtuoso work Free Setting. Further concerts in the series will take place at the Holywell Music Room, Oxford, on November 7th, and 21st, at Deptford Town Hall, in association with Goldsmith’s College, on December 1st, featuring the composer’s large cycle of Verdi Transcriptions, then as part of a two-day Finnissy event on January 19th-20th at City University, to include a complete performance of Finnissy’s five-and-a-half-hour piano work The History of Photography in Sound, which Ian premiered and subsequently recorded, and about which he has written a monograph. Full details of all of this landmark concert series can be read here.

Michael Finnissy, from Kemp’s Morris (1978)

Ian is also giving a recital at the TRANSIT festival, Leuven, on Saturday October 29th, where he has performed regularly since the inception of the festival in 2000. This concert serves in part as a tribute to the Belgian composer Luc Brewaeys, who died tragically early in 2015, and was close both to Ian and the other composers featured in the concert. The programme features posthumous world premiere of Brewaeys’ The Dale of Tranquillity, as well as new commissions from the British composer Lauren Redhead (her piece called simply For Luc Brewaeys), and Portuguese composer Patrícia de Almeida (Vacuum Corporis, for two pianos and film), as well as a repeat performance of Finnissy’s Beethoven’s Robin Adair, premiered by Ian earlier in 2016 in the York Late Music Series as a co-commission, and Brian Ferneyhough’s Quirl (2013). For the Almeida work, Ian will be joined by Ben Smith, who graduated from City’s BMus programme in 2015, having won several prizes during his study there, and with whom Ian will be recording Ferneyhough’s Sonata for Two Pianos later in the autumn. Ben is currently studying on the Master’s Programme at the Guildhall School.

Luc Brewaeys (1959-2015)

The following week, on November 4th and 5th, Ian will be giving a series of special performances together with the Russian pianist Mikhail Rudy for the Foundation Beyeler in Basel of Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus in a version for two pianos by Leonid Sabaneev, together with a special light installation entitled White Point, to accompany an exhibition of the work of Der Blaue Reiter.

On Tuesday November 15th, Ian will be giving a recital for the Contempuls series in Prague, featuring music of Finnissy, Horatiu Radulescu (with whom Ian worked closely, and whose last work, the Sonata No. 6 (2007) was written for him), and new premieres by Czech composer Luboš Mrkvička. He will also be giving a recital at the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Lisbon) on Wednesday November 23rd, with music of Radulescu, Finnissy, Ivan Moody and Patrícia de Almeida, as part of the conference Old is New: The Presence of the Past in the Music of the Present, in which he will also be giving a keynote paper on practice-as-research, drawing upon his own work, on Friday November 25th, and participating in a roundtable.

He has also recently given a paper on ‘Between Academia and Audiences: Some Critical Reflections from a Performer-Scholar’, at the RMA Conference in London in September, and a paper on ‘Ideological Constructions of ‘Experimental Music’ and Anglo-American Nationalism in the Historiography of post-1945 Music’ at City University in October, a revised version of a paper given previously in Coventry and Glasgow.

City music alumna Zara Lim starts new post at the Philharmonia Orchestra

Zara Lim, BMus 2014 graduate

Two years on from graduating from City University’s fantastic Music Department and I find myself an employee of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Personal Assistant to the Managing Director no less! Had someone told me while I was at university that I would be working in one of the most prestigious orchestras with a possible career in Orchestral Management ahead of me, I may have laughed it off.

I didn’t simply fall into this amazing role of course, but I did fall into the role of manager for the London City Orchestra, which was the beginning of this journey for me. The previous manager had to step down and the orchestra needed someone in the interim to take over and see that things kept running. As a recent graduate, I had plenty of time on my hands and thought that it would be a bit of fun and some good experience. Little did I know, I quite enjoyed it and two years later I’m extremely proud to be a part of the orchestra’s growth and development since its inception in 2013.

It has been a steep learning curve, with lots of incredibly proud moments and some very trying times thrown into the mix but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. While I still manage LCO, I have had a fair few other experiences that have contributed to getting me where I am today. A highlight that I will never forget (and still definitely the best 6 months of my professional life) was my time as Projects and Education Trainee with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment which showed me that I could TOTALLY do this full time and love it. Was it hard to do an unpaid internship for 6 months? Yes. Was it worth it? YES! I can’t emphasise enough how amazing an internship can be. If you find yourself in the position of being able to take one on, grab the opportunity with both hands. Not only did I meet some amazing people who I’m still in touch with, but I learned some invaluable skills – some even as basic as how to write a great CV and covering letter (after having mine constructively torn apart by my line manager, for which I am eternally grateful)!

I came out feeling like orchestral management was something I could do with my life, should all my wilder aspirations fall through. I continued managing LCO with all the things that I had learnt and kept building on my experience. Next I undertook a placement with the John Lewis Partnership Music Society, working closely with their Managing Director, Manvinder Rattan, who is now not only a fantastic advisor but a trusted friend.

Then I tried my hand at concert administration with the wonderful young business ‘Bach to Baby’ (founded by concert pianist Miaomiao Yu) which put on concerts for little ones and their adults. It was an amazing experience to be able to see things working from more of a business perspective, and to be in closer contact with audiences and musicians. But I also found myself craving an orchestral setting once again, which led me to apply for the position at the Philharmonia (which I was stunned to have won following interviews, of which there were many)! I have already learnt so much in my role there, working closely with David Whelton, who is in the process of stepping down as Managing Director after an incredible 29 years with the orchestra. I can see the impact that he has had on countless people and organisations over the years, and am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him and the orchestra at this major milestone.

To all of the recent Music graduates at City, and those of you graduating this year, I want to say: it hasn’t entirely been plain sailing from two internships into two fantastic jobs – there have been hours and hours of job hunting, cover letter-writing, interviews and rejections, and less than thrilling retail jobs along the way to keep me afloat – but whatever you’re aiming for, don’t give up, and don’t do things that make you unhappy for too long. Stay in touch with those who help you along the way and be prepared for your aspirations to change! Good luck!

City Summer Sounds DMA Celebration Concert

On Monday 6th June, as part of the City Summer Sounds Festival, we were treated to a concert celebrating the joint City-Guildhall Doctor of Musical Arts degree, presented by 4 completed and completing DMA students, all pianists.

First established in 1992, the City University DMA was the first degree of its kind in the UK. It was re-launched in 2002 as a joint degree with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the first such collaboration between a top-rated University Music Department and an internationally-renowned Conservatoire. The programme combines performance at a professional level with research on an aspect of performance through scholarly work.

With the final students on the programme graduating in 2016, the concert was a celebration of the past 14 years. All of the music performed related to the research undertaken by the students, starting with Annie Yim who performed the first movement of Robert Schumann’s Fantasie in C major, Op. 17, which is strongly connected to her research on Brahms’ Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8a (original version). This was followed by Jennifer Lee who played pieces by Claude Debussy and Korean composer Unsuk Chin, about whose music Jennifer wrote her DMA thesis. Next, Sasha Karpeyev also performed music by Russian composer Nikolai Medtner who spent the last 15 years of his life in London and whose archive of works at the British Library Sasha studied for his DMA. The first half ended with Ben Schoeman playing works by South African composer Stefans Grové, again the focus of his doctoral research.

In the second half of the concert, the pianists came together for some duets (4 hands, 2 pianos) – Schumann’s Andante and Variations in B flat major for two pianos, Op. 46, played by Annie and Ben and the original piano duet version of Ravel’s La Valse played by Sasha and Jennifer. The grand finale of the concert saw all 4 pianists join forces for an energetic performance of Albert Lavignac’s Galop-Marche with 8 hands, 2 pianos – a rousing end to a wonderful concert.

The list of DMA students/alumni since 2002 includes several well-known musical personalities who are active in the United Kingdom and abroad (here are their names in alphabetic order alongside their thesis titles):

Andrew Brownell (USA) – The English Piano in the Classical Period: Its Music, Performers and Influences

Amy Beth Guitry (USA) – The Baroque Flute as a Modern Voice: Extended Techniques and their Practical Integration through Performance and Improvisation

Clare Hammond (UK) – To Conceal or Reveal: Left-Hand Pianism with Particular Reference to Ravel’s ‘Concerto pour la main gauche’ and Britten’s ‘Diversions’

Kostis Hassiotis (Greece) – A Critical Edition of the 48 Studies for Oboe, Op. 31 by Franz Wilhelm Ferling (1796-1874)

Ja Yeon Kang (South Korea) – Robert Schumann’s Notion of the Cycle in ‘Lieder und Gesänge aus Goethes Wilhelm Meister’, Op. 98a and ‘Waldszenen’, Op. 82

Alexander Karpeyev (Russia) – New Light on Nikolay Medtner as Pianist and Teacher: The Edna Iles Medtner Collection (EIMC) at the British Library

Jennifer Lee (New Zealand) – A Study of the Korean Woman Composer, Unsuk Chin, and her Piano Études

Chenyin Li (People’s Republic of China) – Piano Performance: Strategies for Score Memorisation

Edward Pick (UK) – Tonality in Schoenberg’s Music, with Particular Reference to the Piano Concerto

Vasileios Rakitzis (Greece) – Alfred Cortot’s Response to the Music for Solo Piano of Franz Schubert: A Study in Performance Practice

Ben Schoeman (South Africa) – The Piano Works of Stefans Grové (1922-2014): A Study of Stylistic Influences, Technical Elements and Canon Formation within the South African Art Music Tradition

Antonios Sousamoglou (Greece) – An Interpretational Approach to the Violin Concerto of Nikos Skalkottas

Christopher Suckling (UK) – The Realisation of Recitative by the Cello in Handelian Opera: Current and Historical Practices

Annie Yim (Hong Kong/Canada) – A Comparative and Contextual Study of Schumann’s Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 63 and Brahms’s Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 (1854 version): From Musical Aesthetics to Modern Performances

Music at City

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