Project Artists

Ken is internationally recognized as one of today’s most musical and versatile violinists, praised not only for his singularly beautiful tone, but also for the unique atmosphere of intimacy he evokes as he draws in his audiences.

Born and raised in Japan, and currently living in UK, Ken received his musical education in Tokyo, Dallas and London, studying with Chikashi Tanaka, Eduard Schmieder and Erich Gruenberg as well as receiving tuition in masterclasses from Ruggiero Ricci, Ida Haendel, Ivry Gitlis, Abram Shtern and Ferenc Rados. A prize winner of the Long-Thibaud Concours in Paris and the International Music Competition of Japan in Tokyo, Ken has appeared as a soloist in televised and broadcast concerts with orchestras such as BBC Symphony, Tokyo Symphony and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. As a recitalist, he has performed widely in Europe, the United States and Japan with appearances at prestigious concert halls including Het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Rachmaninov Hall in Moscow, Salle Pleyel and Salle Gaveau in Paris, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. In 2003 he was honoured to appear as soloist before the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and in 2004 he founded the critically acclaimed AISO Quartet.

Ken has also performed at renowned International Festivals including Menuhin, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, and IMS Prussia Cove, and has collaborated with Steven Isserlis, Nelson Goerner, Lynn Harrell, David Leisner, and John Surman amongst others. Master classes, recitals, and work with special needs children take him regularly to Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, and more recently to Kazakhstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan. He has been a violin faculty member at Montecito Summer Music Festival in Santa Barbara, California since 2008, and also takes violin performance classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he was elected an Associate in 2005. He also leads meditation concerts.

Ken’s empathy with contemporary music has resulted in several commissions and premieres of works by Alasdair Nicolson, Jonathan Lloyd, Yui Kakinuma, Paul Chihara, Richard Michael and Howard Moody. With his commitment to music education combined with his special rapport with young people Ken enjoys working in creative workshops with children in schools and with handicapped children, patients and staff in hospitals. He is a co-founder of Soundness Festival which offers a unique experience of meditation with classical music. Ken has given performance classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he was elected an Associate in 2005, and has taught at International festivals including Sangat (Mumbai), Bolivia Clasica (La Paz), and Montecito Summer Music Festival (Los Angeles).

kenaiso.net

Matthew is internationally known as cellist, improviser, arranger, music animateur, and Artistic Director of Between the Notes. His musical world is focused on projects that connect people in different ways, blurring the boundaries that never really existed between genres and people.

As soloist and chamber musician he has performed in over 50 countries, including appearances with the BBC Scottish and Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, London Chamber, Melbourne Symphony, Netherland Radio Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, and Vienna Radio Symphony orchestras, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Kremerata Baltica. He has performed at festivals in Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Bonn-Beethovenfest, Hong Kong, Lanaudiere, Abu Dhabi, Krakow, City of London, and in recent seasons at some of the world’s great concert halls: London’s Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Kumho Hall in Korea, Pablo Casals Hall in Tokyo, The Rudolfinium In Prague, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. A key aspect of his recitals is mixing repertoire in unusual ways, pairing Bach suites with jazz and improvisation. He is particularly interested in music with electronics, having commissioned works from many composers including Dai Fujikura, Peter Wiegold, DJ Bee, John Metcalfe and Jan Bang. He has given other premieres of pieces written for him by James MacMillan, Thomas Larcher, Detlev Glanert, John Woolrich and Fraser Trainer.

In 2005 he toured Brett Dean’s ballet score One of the Kind (for solo-on-stage-cello and electronics) with the Netherlands Dans Theatre, in 2010 with the Basel Ballet and in 2012 with Lyon Ballet.
Collaboration. Collaboration – whether chamber music or with different styles of music – is an enduring passion and, amongst others, Matthew has worked with Matthias Goerne, The Labeque Sisters, Martin Frost, Viviane Hagner, Thomas Larcher, Kit Armstrong, Amjad Ali Khan, Julian Joseph, Django Bates, Ross Daly, Talvin Singh, Deep Purple’s Jon Lord, Sultan Khan, Kathryn Tickell and Nitin Sawhney.

In 1997 Matthew Barley founded Between the Notes, a performance and education group that has appeared at the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Opera House (with the Royal Ballet) and the International Symposium of Contemporary Music in Hong Kong. In 2005 the group took the lead role in a devised work, Invisible Lines, which culminated in a live-television performance at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms, alongside players from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. More recently Between the Notes took centre stage for the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Köln Philharmonie as soloists with the Gürzenich Orchestra under Markus Stenz.

A major project, The Peasant Girl, with his wife, Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova, has seen over 40 performances worldwide. The programme features Matthew’s arrangements of gypsy and jazz music, as well as Bartok and Kodaly, and has been recorded for CD and DVD on Onyx Classics. 2007 saw Matthew’s debut on television as the Music Director of BBC 2’s widely acclaimed ‘Classical Star’.

His first CD on Black Box, The Silver Swan was an enormous critical success, followed by Reminding, a disc of Soviet music. Constant Filter (music for cello and electronics by John Metcalfe) is Matthew’s second release for Signum Classics, following the five-star success of The Dance of the Three Legged Elephants with jazz pianist Julian Joseph.

In 2013 Matthew undertook an astonishing 100-event UK tour celebrating Benjamin Britten – the itinerary included venues as diverse as a Victorian swimming pool, a lighthouse, a barn and the Wigmore Hall in London, as well as a host of educational projects in schools, a hospice, an old people’s home and a prison. The tour was accompanied by a release on Signum Classics, Around Britten, described by Sinfini as “a defining statement in modern cello playing”.

Future projects include the BBC Philharmonic, City of London Sinfonia, Multi-Story (a debut with the famed Car-Park orchestra), an 11-day residency with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, a return to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, more concerts with tabla maestro Sukhwinder Singh and tours throughout Europe and in Mexico.

matthewbarley.com

A highly versatile musician, Mark covers many styles from swing to bop as well as the more contemporary. He can be found working with a great variety of players, including Herbie Flowers, Alan Barnes, Julian Arguelles, Nikki Iles, Stan Sulzmann, Steve Waterman, Will Todd, Billy Jenkins and the BBC Big Band, and last year at Ronnie Scotts with Liane Carroll.

Born in Sheffield, he started trombone aged 11. After studying at Trinity College of Music he was invited by Mark Nightingale to join National Youth Jazz Orchestra, later playing with Loose Tubes, Brotherhood of Breath, Mike Westbrook, Stan Tracey, John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. He has recorded widely with many people and released two albums under his own name: Mark Bassey’s Telling Stories a quartet album featuring his own highly programmatic writing, and the quintet Bassey Plays Basie. He has also written numerous compositions and arrangements, many of which have been recorded and broadcast.

Mark has been involved with jazz education for over 25 years, teaching all instruments and running classes in harmony, improvisation, composition and arranging at many colleges including the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music, and the Jamey Aebersold jazz summer school in Louisville, Kentucky.

markbassey.com

Buster had a degree in music from University of London and a post-graduate diploma in jazz performance from Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He also studied at the Drummers Collective in New York City and privately with Jim Chaplin and Joe Morello (Dave Brubeck Quartet). He has a wealth of experience in many different musical genres and has performed in virtually every majoe concert hall and jazz club in London as well as major international festivals, touring in over 30 countries.

Much in demand as a jazz drummer, he has backed many of the UK’s finest jazz musicians including Bobby Wellins, John Etheridge, Alan Barnes, Stan Sulzmann, Jim Mullen and Derek Nash. He is a member of several acclaimed ‘world music’ groups, all of which combine original compositions with their own traditional fold styles from Russia, Cuba and the Balkans. He has worked with world class orchestras including Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and performed and recorded with commercial pop artists such as Lily Allen and Russell Watson. He appears as a side man on over 25 albums and has his own project ‘Buster plays Buster’ which involves performing live with his quartet to the screening of a Buster Keeton movie, for which he has arranged and scored all the music.

Buster has a great deal of experience in music education, bot as percussion teacher and lecturer. He is a professorial member of staff at Trinity Conservatoire of Music and has worked as visiting lecturer at Royal Academy of Music, Middlesex University, Guildhall Schools of Music and Drama and West Kent College. He has lectured on improvisation, musicianship, repertoire, analysis, music history, music business and has devised, delivered and assessed various course units. He has taught peripatetically in almost every type of school, and worked as a tutor on many community education projects and workshops, involving diverse groups including school children, adult learners and prison inmates for organisations such as London 2012 Olympics, London Symphony Orchestra ‘Discovery’, English Touring Opera and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

freewebs.com/busterbirch

Emily studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama following a degree in Psychology and Education. She has performed as soloist with many groups including La Folia, Jupiter Orchestra, Richard Alston Dance Company, and has given many lieder recitals, oratorio and music theatre performances in the UK and abroad. Solo performances include Where Two Worlds Touch for Ageas Salisbury International Arts Festival and Via Perdix for La Folia.

Emily is trained as a voice and speech teacher and has worked in London drama schools including Central School of Speech and Drama and Mountview Theatre School. She is also much in demand as a singing teacher particularly with young people and is passionate about helping them to find their own individual expression. She has co-devised many opera projects in schools both special and mainstream, for Children’s Music Workshop, Create2Learn and La Folia. For many years she has run music groups with very young children using her own compositions.

Colin trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as an actor and has worked for some of the UK’s leading theatre companies. He has just finished his second stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has appeared in British TV staples like The Bill, Red Cap, The Man Who Cried, as well as various short films and commercials.

He devises, directs and performs in opera, theatre and film projects with children and young people, including those with a range of disabilities and special needs. Projects include A Princess Tale with London Symphony Orchestra/Musicians in Focus; Song Soup with BBC; Face Off, Bridging the Gap, Common Ground, (short film projects) in association with Lifewisdoms. Opera projects (actor/deviser/storyteller) include Orpheus and Eurydice, The Tempest, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Petrushka, with Create2Learn/La Folia at Chichester Festival Theatre; The Tempest and Midsummer Dreaming with Sarum Orchestra; The Ring Cycle – (Rhinemaidens, The Valkyries, Siegfried) with La Folia and Rusalka, with La Folia/Lifewisdoms.

Colin also coaches business people on impact and influence, presentation and communication skills and storytelling in business.

Anna has worked in theatre with Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre and has also led West End shows. She has played with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and London Jazz Sinfonia and continues to work as a session musician on pop and film recordings. She often plays with Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and has worked with Squeeze, Bjork, Massive Attack, Elvis Costello and Oasis. More recently Anna has taken up the piano accordion on which she likes to play jazz and folk, and also the viola which is a joy to play in chamber music.

Lynsey enjoys a wide and varied career as an operatic soprano, a leading vocal animateur and Artistic Director of Celebrate Voice. Principal roles on the operatic stage include Leonora (Il Trovatore), Violetta (La Traviata), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Tosca (Tosca), Hanna Glawari (The Merry Widow), Constance (The Sorcerer) with companies including Dorset Opera Festival, Opera Della Luna, New Devon Opera, Riverside Opera, Candlelight Opera, The Mastersingers Company and the Wagner Society.

On the concert platform she has performed in St. Martin in the Fields, the Purcell Room, Southbank, Chelmsford Cathedral, Cheltenham Town Hall, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Salisbury International Arts Festival, Salisbury Cathedral, Blenheim Palace and for many music societies nationwide. Her critically acclaimed oratorio appearances in venues such as Exeter and Norwich cathedrals include Mendelssohn’s Elijah (Exeter Philharmonic Choir), Mozart C Minor Mass & Linley Song of Moses (Aylesbury Choral Society), Mozart Vespers (Norwich Cathedral), Brahms Requiem (Hayes Symphony Orchestra and Chorus), Fauré Requiem (Norwich Cathedral), Beethoven Mass in C (Henley Choral Society) and Rossini Petite Messe Solonelle with the Sussex Chorus. She has performed for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s Operantics in Fife, with London’s newest orchestra Harmony Sinfonia performing Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder and she sang Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido and Duparc songs with the Salisbury Sinfonia.

As vocal animateur she has led community projects for orchestras, opera companies and theatres. She is particularly dedicated to working with those who may not ordinarily have access to the arts. She has lead singing projects in such diverse environments as an orphanage in Tajikistan, with inmates in prison, for the Olympic celebrations and creating opera with children and young adults with severe special needs. She has worked with Children’s Music Workshops, Create2learn, Norwich Theatre Royal, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, La Folia, Coastal Voices (Olympics 2012) and in 2011 founded the Riverside Singers for whom she is musical director. She is Artistic Director of Celebrate Voice, a festival which brings leading professionals into the Salisbury community to inspire, create music and sing with local people with a series of concerts, recitals, workshops and opera.

lynseydocherty.co.uk | celebratevoice.co.uk

Susan is a professional artist, Belfast born and now living in the South West, with over twenty years’ experience of working with people of all ages and abilities. Her work has brought her into contact with everything from schools and colleges through to museums, hospices, homeless charities and the Women’s Institute. In addition she exhibits her own sculpture, installation and video work internationally.

makingarttogether.co.uk

Tunde is a composer and multi-instrumentalist in Contemporary Classical, African and Pop music, working across several genres as performer (Cello, Kora, Piano and Percussion), composer and producer.

Tunde’s involvement in African Diasporic culture began in north London and his apprenticeship in African music began when he went to the Gambia to study the ancient Griot tradition of West Africa. He formed his own Jazz Ensemble, The Jazz Griots, to explorethe connections between African and African Diasporic forms of music. His interest in Western Classical music began with his church organist grandfather’s love of Bach. Tunde played cello from an early age and studied at the Purcell School and Guildhall School of Music.

Tunde pioneered African Classical Music in the UK, and a BBC TV documentary, ‘Africa I Remember’ centred on his orchestral work. As innovations composer for the Eastern Orchestral Board he has worked with many of the major orchestras in the UK including Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Britten Sinfonia, Viva Sinfonia, London Mozart Players and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. He has composed Percussion Concerto for Evelyn Glennie and Double Orchestra, an oratorio for the city of Milton Keynes and a string quartet for the Brodsky Quartet. Tunde continues to work closely with singers, vocalists, and spoken word artists from a wide range of traditions including opera, pop, R’N’B, reggae, Hip Hop and Jazz.

tundejegede.com

Joely enjoys a varied musical career as an orchestral principal, chamber musician, and soloist. She is also professor of cello at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Joely performs as principal cellist with the London Chamber Orchestra and the City of London Sinfonia and is regularly invited to play guest principal with many orchestras including  Bournemouth Symphony, London Sinfonietta, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Concert orchestras. Educated at Chethams School, Joely won scholarships to Cambridge University and then the Royal Academy of Music. She was a prizewinner in the Jacqueline du Pré Competition. Joely particularly enjoys sharing music informally in schools and hospitals.

Mark Padmore was born in London and grew up in Canterbury. After beginning his musical studies on the clarinet he gained a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge and graduated with an honours degree in music. He has established a flourishing career in opera, concert and recital.

Mark’s performances in Bach’s Passions have gained particular notice throughout the world. In the opera house he has worked with directors Peter Brook, Katie Mitchell, Mark Morris and Deborah Warner. Recent work includes the leading role in Harrison Birtwistle’s new opera The Corridor with performances at the 2009 Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals, as well as the Southbank Centre in London; Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at La Monnaie, Brussels; Handel’s Jephtha at Welsh National Opera and English National Opera,  Captain Vere in Britten’s Billy Budd and the Evangelist in a staging of St Matthew Passion at Glyndebourne. He also played Peter Quint in an acclaimed BBC TV production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw and recorded the title role in La Clemenza di Tito with René Jacobs for Harmonia Mundi. Future plans include Captain Vere in Britten Billy Budd for Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

In concert Mark has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Munich Radio, Berlin, Vienna, New York and London Philharmonic Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston and London Symphony Orchestras and the Philharmonia. He makes regular appearances with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with whom he has conceived projects exploring both Bach St John and St Matthew Passions. Mark has given recitals in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, New York, Paris and Vienna. He appears frequently at Wigmore Hall in London where he first sang all three Schubert song cycles in May 2008, was their Artist in Residence in the 2009/10 Season and in 2011/12 repeated the cycles there with Paul Lewis. He also recently sang the cycles at the Theatre an der Wien and at Salle Gaveau in Paris with Till Fellner. Composers who have written for him have included Mark-Anthony Turnage, Alec Roth, Sally Beamish, Thomas Larcher and Huw Watkins. As well as his regular collaborators Paul Lewis, Till Fellner, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Julius Drake, Roger Vignoles, Simon Lepper and Andrew West, he works with many internationally renowned chamber musicians including Imogen Cooper and Steven Isserlis.

Since 2007 Mark has been recording for Harmonia Mundi with releases including a disc of Handel arias As Steals the Morn with the English Concert which won the BBC Music magazine Vocal Award; Schubert Schwanengesang, Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise with Paul Lewis, which in 2010 won the Gramophone magazine Vocal Solo Award; Schumann Dichterliebe with Kristian Bezuidenhout which won the Vocal Solo category of the 2011 Edison Klassiek Award and Britten Serenade, Nocturne and Finzi Dies Natalis with the Britten Sinfonia which won the ECHO/Klassik 2013 Vocal Solo Recording award. Previous recordings include the Bach Passions with Herreweghe and McCreesh, Bach Cantatas with Eliot Gardiner, Don Giovanni with Daniel Harding, operas by Rameau and Charpentier with William Christie and Haydn Creation for Deutsche Grammophon.

Mark is Artistic Director of the St. Endellion Summer Music Festival in Cornwall. He is a patron of the singing trust.

markpadmore.com

Emma trained at the Ballet Rambert School before going on to enjoy a long and successful career with companies including Vienna Festival Ballet, Alexander Roy London Ballet Theatre and Stuttgart’s Telos Tanz Theatre. She has danced the lead role in many classics: Swan Lake, Coppelia, Giselle and The Nutcracker as well as creating roles in many new works. On the side, Emma has discovered the joyous diversity of folk dance with troupes such as Taras Cossacks, Tziganka and Romanska. She has taught ballet, contemporary and Russian dance to beginners and professionals alike. A registered teacher with the Royal Academy of Dancing, she enjoys teaching ballet to young students in her area.

With her own group of dancers she choreographed Ballet for Heroes, Getting There and, in collaboration with composer Alexander Telnikoff, a reworking of Shakespeare’s King Lear. She worked with Elektrodome using their Soundbeam technology, which involved the creation of Nu for the Place Theatre with choreographer Henry Daniels and choreographing Leonardo’s Lists with composer Katharine Normans, in which the dancer’s movements control the music with the aid of a Soundbeam. More recently for Create2Learn/La Folia at the Chichester Festival theatre, she has choreographed Brave New World, Enchanting Voices, Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Petrushka. And for La Folia Baba Yaga, Midsummer Dreaming, Travelogue, Sounds That Hurt Not, Via Perdix, Rusalka and The Ring Cycle.

British soprano Charlotte Shaw is a first class honours graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and a ‘Rising Star of the Enlightenment’ for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Charlotte Shaw is a regular soloist for English National Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera and has also sung for Glyndebourne Jerwood Artists, Garsington Festival, Brighton Festival, London Handel Festival and Barber Opera. Her operatic repertoire includes Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lucia The Rape of Lucretia, Title role Semele, Serpetta La Finta Giardiniera, Michal Saul, Title role Berenice, Zerlina Don Giovanni, Barbarina Le Nozze Di Figaro, Belinda Dido And Aeneas, Mabel Pirates Of Penzance, Une Pastourelle L’enfant et les Sortilèges, Priestess Hippolyte et Aricie, Eve Fairy Queen, Armilla in Porpora’s L’agrippina, Énone and Proserpine La Descente D’orphée Aux Enfers, Teresa in Julian Philips The Yellow Sofa, Miss Schlesen in Philip Glass’ Satyagraha and Shadow Marnie in the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s Marnie.

Concert performances include Haydn’s Creation, Missa Sancti Nicolai, Nelson Mass and Harmoniemesse, Mozart’s Requiem, Exsultate Jubilate and Solemnes De Confessore, Handel’s Messiah, Israel In Egypt, and Saul, Bach’s B Minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras, Vivaldi’s Nulla In Mundo Pax Sincera, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder in venues including Queen Elizabeth Hall, Cadogan Hall, Kings Place and Snape Maltings and on tours of Europe and Asia with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort and London Chamber Arts Orchestra.

Engagements for the 2018/19 season include Glass’ Akhnaten for ENO, Handel’s Susanna, Bach’s St Matthew Passion, a music outreach project with La Folia at Salisbury Cathedral, a solo concert tour of Asia for the OAE and a staged Bach St John Passion for Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Sellers.

Former zoologist and National Otter Surveyor of England, Philip studied singing at Birmingham Conservatoire and Royal Northern College of Music and graduated with distinction in 2008. He has received a number of awards including an Independent Opera/Royal Northern College of Music Fellowship and is an alumnus of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme as well as being a Samling Scholar.

Philip performs in concerts, recitals and festivals across the UK and Europe, including The Sage Gateshead, Wigmore Hall, Uzerche International Festival, Leeds Lieder+ Festival, Aldeburgh Festival and more recently further afield at the ChoirFest Middle East 2014 in Dubai. He has broadcast on Radio 3 several times including a live broadcast from Wigmore Hall and has recorded songs by Benjamin Britten with Malcolm Martineau. He also enjoys a busy operatic career having worked with the UK’s leading companies including Glyndebourne, Scottish Opera and Opera North as well singing principal roles for Royal Danish Opera, Teatro Maggio Musicale in Florence, Polish National Opera in Warsaw and most recently Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy.

Future plans include performances of Schubert’s great song cycle Winterreise with James Cheung in Devon and Leeds, an edcuation project for Wigmore Hall, singing the role of Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff and a return to the Montepulciano International Music Festival this summer.

ssartists.co.uk

Born in Mexico City in 1979, Morgan started playing the guitar at the age of six. Early studies at the National Music School (Mexico) and the Edinburgh Music School led to a scholarship to study under Carlos Bonell and Gary Ryan at the Royal College of Music in London, graduating in 2004 with first class honours. During his studies he won all guitar prizes as well as scholarships from the Tillett Trust, Countess of Munster Musical Trust, Leverhulme Trust, Wall Trust, FONCA (National Fund for Culture and Arts, a public agency of the Mexican Federal Government) and a scholarship to study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He immediately went on to become the first solo guitarist to be selected by Young Classical Artist Trust and was the first guitarist to be awarded a Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he completed his Masters degree with distinction.

A top prize-winner at international competitions, in 2002 Morgan won first prize at the National Guitar Competition in Mexico. Performances as a soloist and with orchestras have taken him to concert halls and festivals in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, China, Chile, France, Germany, Guatemala, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Scotland, United Kingdom, United State of America and Zimbabwe.

In recent years Morgan has given recitals at major UK venues and festivals including at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, King’s Place, The Sage Gateshead, Royal Opera House, Lichfield Festival, Salisbury Festival and London International Guitar Festival. He has appeared as a soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Orchestra of the Swan, Southbank Sinfonia, Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Sinfonia, Cervantes Choir and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Morgan continues to build his international reputation with performances around the world, most recently including performances at the Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus and Mexico’s Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Morgan’s devotion to chamber music has led to collaborations with artists such as John Williams, Celso Machado and Carlos Bonell (guitar), Mark Padmore (tenor), Alison Balsom (trumpet), Priya Mitchell (violin), Marcelo Nisinman (bandoneon), Adam Walker (flute), Phuong Nguyen (accordion), (flute), Clara Mouriz (mezzo-soprano) and the Sacconi, Doric and Carducci Quartets,

Regularly broadcast live on TV and radio worldwide, Morgan can often be heard on BBC Radio 3. Described as ‘top class in every respect’ (Classical Guitar Magazine, 2005), Morgan’s first CD The Unicorn in the Garden  (Sarabande Records) was released in 2005 including works by Simone Iannarelli, Jorger Ritter, Manuel M. Ponce and Agustin Barrios as well as works especially written for him by Alec Roth. Morgan’s second CD Songs in Time of War’ (Signum), is a stunning collaboration with Mark Padmore (tenor), Philippe Honoré (violin), Alison Nicholls (harp), composer Alec Roth and the words of Vikram Seth. His recordings with his ensemble Machaca, Mano a Mano and Los Ambulantes (Sarabande Records) have been described as ‘a jewel’ by Gramophone Magazine.

Collaborations with composers have led to new works for guitar dedicated to Morgan by Simone Iannarelli, Stephen McNeff, Julio César Oliva and Alec Roth whose Concerto for Guitar and Strings was premiered with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in 2010.

Morgan’s latest project is a visual and auditory journey entitled Sketches of Mexico (Sarabande Records). This is a unique collaboration combining Mexican music from Julio César Oliva and Manuel M. Ponce and the work of twenty visual artists from United Kingdom, Mexico, Portugal and China. Gramophone Magazine has called it ‘a gorgeous and original tribute to Szymanski’s homeland, its artists and its music’ with Morgan’s playing ‘of the highest order.’

The season 2013/14 sees Morgan return tours to Mexico, Italy and the UK. 2013 saw a series of concerts in Spain as well as return visits to London´s Wigmore Hall, Spitalfields Festival and his debut with Dublin´s RTÉ Orchestra. April 2013 saw the release of Sometime I Sing (Signum), a new CD of the music for tenor and guitar by Alec Roth.

Morgan plays on a guitar by the Chinese master guitar luthier Yulong Guo. He is a Live Music Now alumnus, the scheme started by Lord Yehudi Menuhin to reach audiences that would otherwise have no access to live music. Described as ‘a player destined for future glories’ (Classical Guitar Magazine) Morgan has been highlighted as ‘one to watch’ by both Gramophone Magazine and the BBC Music Magazine. A featured artist on the cover of Classical Guitar Magazine, Morgan Szymanski was recently selected as a finalist for the ‘Outstanding Young Artist Award’ by MIDEM Classique/IAMA.

Morgan is much in demand as a teacher and has given masterclasses at conservatoires in UK including Royal College of Music, Royal Welsh college of Music and Trinity College of Music, as well as conservatoires in China, Bermuda and Mexico. In 2013 he was appointed resident artist at Beaminster Festival in Dorset.

morganszymanski.co.uk

For over 25 years, Mark has been performing old music and creating new music working alongside the widest possible range of musicians. He has collaborated with numerous orchestras and opera companies in his own country and abroad and has worked for many years with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and in Barcelona with the Fundacion ‘La Caixa’. In recent years he has helped to establish new creative education programmes with ensembles including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris and the Orchestra Nacional de Espana in Madrid. Many of Mark’s clarinets have been made or adapted especially for him and he is currently using instruments made in Paris in the 1920’s by the firm of G. LeBlanc.

Much of Mark’s work breaks down barriers between disciplines. In both 2010 and 2011 he has created new film scores for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Creation (2009-10) with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment brought Mark together with scientists from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. In 1993, Mark’s Gamelan programme with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester was awarded a Gold Medal by Queen Elizabeth II for work of lasting value to the community.

Mark has a special interest in music for people with sickness and disability. Since 1998 he has directed the London Symphony Orchestra’s programme of work for children in London Hospitals. From 2000 to 2004 he was also a member of staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London where he worked with children with cancer and heart conditions. Mark is currently an advisor to the charity, Jessie’s Fund, providing music for disabled and life-limited children throughout the UK.

Strummer of guitar and a plethora of fretted instruments, Adrian Zolotuhin started performing professionally at the age of fifteen when he joined his father Alyosha’s Russian folk ensemble “Kabak”. Around the same time he started performing in pubs and clubs with his own band of alt-rockers. Over the years his playing has covered rock, pop, jazz, world music and orchestral styles. He is currently touring regularly with the vaguely Balkan Budapest Café Orchestra and the extremely funky pop band Twisted Karaoke. As a composer/arranger his credits include the BBC Radio 4 play The Mironov Legacy, the Little Angel Theatre production Tsar Saltan, orchestral suite Travelogue and ballet The Hidden Prince. In more modern media he has produced music for TV, viral advertising and an iPhone app. When not working on his own music, Adrian teaches guitar to the budding rock stars of Hampshire and produces albums for some of the other jazz, folk and world music artists he has met along the way.

thebetterbutton.com