Digital series artists
Like many arts organisations, Illuminate has unfortunately had to postpone its current season of concerts. However, we are desperate to continue to share fantastic music by women composers from the past and present with you. As such, we have launched our first ever Digital Concert series. We'll be bringing these digital concerts to you between October 2020 to May 2021.
Artists will include classical guitarist Eleanor Kelly, mezzo soprano Patricia Hammond with pianist Andrea Kmecova, double bassist Maggie Cox, early keyboard instrumentalist Marcia Hadjimarkos, pianist Ania Vu, violinist Sofia Yatsu pianist Samantha Ege and soprano Rose Hegele.
Artists will include classical guitarist Eleanor Kelly, mezzo soprano Patricia Hammond with pianist Andrea Kmecova, double bassist Maggie Cox, early keyboard instrumentalist Marcia Hadjimarkos, pianist Ania Vu, violinist Sofia Yatsu pianist Samantha Ege and soprano Rose Hegele.
Eleanor Kelly (1995) is a classical guitarist based in Merseyside, UK.
In 2016, Eleanor completed her Music (BA) in Liverpool and graduated First Class with Honours. Her study primarily focused on, amongst other things, Performance, Composition and research on flamenco guitar traditions.
Chosen as one of twelve guitarists from around the world, Eleanor is currently a student of the prestigious Máster en Interpretación Guitarra Clásicacourse in Alicante, Spain. Her teachers include: David Russell, Ignacio Rodes, Ricardo Gallen, Hopkinson Smith, Xavier Diaz-Latorre, Tilman Hoppstock.
In 2019, Eleanor gave the UK premiere of Claudia Montero's Latin Grammy award-winning Luces y Sombraswith the Woodside String Quartet at the Angel Field Festival and performed the work again at the International Guitar Festival of Great Britain.Other chamber music engagements include performing as part of theD2e Duo alongside classical/Russian 7 string guitarist Yvonne Gründer. The duo specialise in works by female and contemporary composers.
Recently, Eleanor successfully auditioned for the IGF’s Young Artist Platform and will be a part of the scheme in the near future performing, receiving mentoring and attending workshops.
Eleanor plays a Yulong Guo Chamber Concert classical guitar.
Digital concert on 29th October 2020 - premiering on Illuminate Youtube channel!
In 2016, Eleanor completed her Music (BA) in Liverpool and graduated First Class with Honours. Her study primarily focused on, amongst other things, Performance, Composition and research on flamenco guitar traditions.
Chosen as one of twelve guitarists from around the world, Eleanor is currently a student of the prestigious Máster en Interpretación Guitarra Clásicacourse in Alicante, Spain. Her teachers include: David Russell, Ignacio Rodes, Ricardo Gallen, Hopkinson Smith, Xavier Diaz-Latorre, Tilman Hoppstock.
In 2019, Eleanor gave the UK premiere of Claudia Montero's Latin Grammy award-winning Luces y Sombraswith the Woodside String Quartet at the Angel Field Festival and performed the work again at the International Guitar Festival of Great Britain.Other chamber music engagements include performing as part of theD2e Duo alongside classical/Russian 7 string guitarist Yvonne Gründer. The duo specialise in works by female and contemporary composers.
Recently, Eleanor successfully auditioned for the IGF’s Young Artist Platform and will be a part of the scheme in the near future performing, receiving mentoring and attending workshops.
Eleanor plays a Yulong Guo Chamber Concert classical guitar.
Digital concert on 29th October 2020 - premiering on Illuminate Youtube channel!
Patricia Hammond, mezzo-soprano, was born in British Columbia but moved to England in 2000. She has performed opera in the Wexford Festival and at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, oratorio solos with the OAE in the Royal Festival Hall and concert halls throughout Europe, but she is most fond of giving recitals. She has performed these throughout the world: in the Beauharnais house in Paris, the Bundestag and Kaisertag in Berlin, the Houses of Parliament in London, and a host of stately homes, festivals and museums. Her recordings have been played on BBCs 2, 3 and 4 and she has appeared on BBC Four TV a few times. She's also to be seen and heard singing in the Fox Searchlight film "Tolkien". While Patricia performs everything from Renaissance music (CD: "In Mirth and Mourning") to modern premieres ("A Swaledale Sequence" for the Swaledale Festival) the specialism she is known for is the research and authentic performance of late Victorian to 1920s popular song, highlighting Edwardian styles in particular. Her new book "She Wrote the Songs" (Valley Press) seeks to shine a light on the neglected genre of Parlour-song and the women who were at the core of its existence and creation.
Andrea Kmecova, pianist and founder of the Greenwich-based piano academy Piano Maestros, was born in Slovakia and studied at the Bratislava Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. In 2007 she entered Trinity College of Music in London, where she gained a Masters Degree in piano accompaniment. Whilst at Trinity College, she was an Alfred Kitchin Scholar, received the Founders Prize for her artistic accomplishments and represented the college at the Gerald Moore Award competition for promising young accompanists.
Venues she has performed at include the Houses of Parliament, the Kaiserhof Residence in Munich and the Royal Palace in Madrid, where she played for Queen Sofia.
Andrea played in a session with Jamie Cullum for his BBC Radio 4 programme Jamie Cullum’s Piano Pilgrimage. Other broadcast appearances include BBC2, Slovak National Radio & Slovak Television. She and Patricia collaborated on the 34-track recording that accompanies Patricia's book "She Wrote the Songs."
Andrea Kmecova, pianist and founder of the Greenwich-based piano academy Piano Maestros, was born in Slovakia and studied at the Bratislava Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. In 2007 she entered Trinity College of Music in London, where she gained a Masters Degree in piano accompaniment. Whilst at Trinity College, she was an Alfred Kitchin Scholar, received the Founders Prize for her artistic accomplishments and represented the college at the Gerald Moore Award competition for promising young accompanists.
Venues she has performed at include the Houses of Parliament, the Kaiserhof Residence in Munich and the Royal Palace in Madrid, where she played for Queen Sofia.
Andrea played in a session with Jamie Cullum for his BBC Radio 4 programme Jamie Cullum’s Piano Pilgrimage. Other broadcast appearances include BBC2, Slovak National Radio & Slovak Television. She and Patricia collaborated on the 34-track recording that accompanies Patricia's book "She Wrote the Songs."
Marguerite is currently pursuing a post-baccalaureate certificate at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studies with Hal Robinson and Edgar Meyer. Marguerite recently graduated from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where she was a student of Paul Ellison.
A lover of new music and unconventional performances, Marguerite has performed with the Houston-based ensembles KINETIC and Loop38. Marguerite’s junior recital also included the Houston premieres of both Ondas, by Sonia Ray, and Pantomime, by Sofia Gubaidalina. In 2018, as a fellow at the Music Academy of the West, Marguerite premiered Timothy Higgins’ Nursery Crimes, performing alongside soprano Deborah Voigt.
Marguerite is a passionate advocate for a more equitable society, in the music world and beyond. While at Rice, Marguerite earned a minor in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. As a student in the PJHC program, Marguerite organized a series of benefit concerts called Artists for Action, bringing together musicians of all genres and backgrounds for an evening of music and community engagement. Marguerite is a co-founder of PAGE (the Petition for All Gender Equity) and led the first-ever panel discussion on gender and double bass at the 2018 International Society of Bassists convention at Indiana University. She has been featured on Jason Heath’s Contrabass Conversations podcast, and co-authored the controversial 2018 article, “Why ‘bass boiz’ Isn’t Funny”.
Marguerite has spent her summers at the Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Sarasota Music Festival, Domaine Forget International Academy, and the Wabass Institute, and has played under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons, Stephen Deneve, Elim Chan, Thomas Ades, and Larry Rachleff. Her teachers and mentors have included Hal Robinson, Edgar Meyer, Paul Ellison, Tim Pitts, Tracy Rowell, Henry Peyrebrune, and Bryan Thomas.
Marguerite is also an avid runner, and completed the Cleveland Marathon in 2017. When she is not practicing or on a run, Marguerite can be found playing with her cat, spending time outside, reading, and listening to podcasts.
A lover of new music and unconventional performances, Marguerite has performed with the Houston-based ensembles KINETIC and Loop38. Marguerite’s junior recital also included the Houston premieres of both Ondas, by Sonia Ray, and Pantomime, by Sofia Gubaidalina. In 2018, as a fellow at the Music Academy of the West, Marguerite premiered Timothy Higgins’ Nursery Crimes, performing alongside soprano Deborah Voigt.
Marguerite is a passionate advocate for a more equitable society, in the music world and beyond. While at Rice, Marguerite earned a minor in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities. As a student in the PJHC program, Marguerite organized a series of benefit concerts called Artists for Action, bringing together musicians of all genres and backgrounds for an evening of music and community engagement. Marguerite is a co-founder of PAGE (the Petition for All Gender Equity) and led the first-ever panel discussion on gender and double bass at the 2018 International Society of Bassists convention at Indiana University. She has been featured on Jason Heath’s Contrabass Conversations podcast, and co-authored the controversial 2018 article, “Why ‘bass boiz’ Isn’t Funny”.
Marguerite has spent her summers at the Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Sarasota Music Festival, Domaine Forget International Academy, and the Wabass Institute, and has played under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons, Stephen Deneve, Elim Chan, Thomas Ades, and Larry Rachleff. Her teachers and mentors have included Hal Robinson, Edgar Meyer, Paul Ellison, Tim Pitts, Tracy Rowell, Henry Peyrebrune, and Bryan Thomas.
Marguerite is also an avid runner, and completed the Cleveland Marathon in 2017. When she is not practicing or on a run, Marguerite can be found playing with her cat, spending time outside, reading, and listening to podcasts.
Marcia Hadjimarkos, whose playing has been described as “imaginatively realized, full-blooded and loving”, “brilliantly intelligent”, and “dynamic, free, and powerfully shaped”, fell in love with keyboard instruments at an early age.
Piano lessons began soon thereafter, and continued through high school in Portland, Oregon. She graduated with a double major in piano performance and French literature from the University of Iowa, where she was inspired by the harpsichord and the revelatory power of historic instruments.
A move to Europe followed, and with it the discovery of the many facets of the clavichord and historic piano. She studied the latter with Jos Van Immerseel at the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique, and has since been immersed in keyboards old and new with concerts, recordings and teaching. During the last 3 decades, spent mostly in Burgundy, Marcia has been an internationally recognized specialist on the fortepiano and clavichord, performing in solo concerts as well as in chamber music and lieder recitals with Emma Kirkby, and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, and Julianne Baird, among others.
Venues have included the International Piano Festival in la Roque d’Anthéron, Autonno Musicale de Como, Rencontres International harmoniques, St. Cecilia’s Hall, International Festival of Spanish Keyboard Music, La Folle Journée de Nantes, Festival Estival de Lyon, Antwerpiano, Festival de Sablé, Les Goûts Réunis, Rifiorir d’Antichi Suoni…
Marcia also likes to play in unusual settings including barns, towers, greenhouses and stables. She gives early piano and clavichord master classes in France and abroad, and has taught modern piano in a variety of settings. She’s been involved in operetta, written and translated numerous texts about music and instruments, and published a piano work by Dussek.
Her 8-recital performance of the complete Haydn sonatas on a variety of early keyboards met with critical success, as have her recordings, which include Mozart Sonatas and Rondos on fortepiano (Avie), CPE Bach on fortepiano and clavichord (Zig-Zag), Haydn on clavichord (Zig-Zag), Haydn Songs and Cantatas with Emma Kirkby (Brilliant Classics) and Schubert Dances and Sonata on fortepiano (Arabesque Recordings). These have earned a Diapason d’Or, five-star reviews in Goldberg, Musica, and Fonoforum, and enthusiastic articles in Fanfare, Télérama, Gramophone and Le Monde de la Musique. She also accompanied Hugo Reyne (csakan) on the CD “Viennoiseries Musicales “(Musiques à la Chabotterie).
Piano lessons began soon thereafter, and continued through high school in Portland, Oregon. She graduated with a double major in piano performance and French literature from the University of Iowa, where she was inspired by the harpsichord and the revelatory power of historic instruments.
A move to Europe followed, and with it the discovery of the many facets of the clavichord and historic piano. She studied the latter with Jos Van Immerseel at the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique, and has since been immersed in keyboards old and new with concerts, recordings and teaching. During the last 3 decades, spent mostly in Burgundy, Marcia has been an internationally recognized specialist on the fortepiano and clavichord, performing in solo concerts as well as in chamber music and lieder recitals with Emma Kirkby, and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, and Julianne Baird, among others.
Venues have included the International Piano Festival in la Roque d’Anthéron, Autonno Musicale de Como, Rencontres International harmoniques, St. Cecilia’s Hall, International Festival of Spanish Keyboard Music, La Folle Journée de Nantes, Festival Estival de Lyon, Antwerpiano, Festival de Sablé, Les Goûts Réunis, Rifiorir d’Antichi Suoni…
Marcia also likes to play in unusual settings including barns, towers, greenhouses and stables. She gives early piano and clavichord master classes in France and abroad, and has taught modern piano in a variety of settings. She’s been involved in operetta, written and translated numerous texts about music and instruments, and published a piano work by Dussek.
Her 8-recital performance of the complete Haydn sonatas on a variety of early keyboards met with critical success, as have her recordings, which include Mozart Sonatas and Rondos on fortepiano (Avie), CPE Bach on fortepiano and clavichord (Zig-Zag), Haydn on clavichord (Zig-Zag), Haydn Songs and Cantatas with Emma Kirkby (Brilliant Classics) and Schubert Dances and Sonata on fortepiano (Arabesque Recordings). These have earned a Diapason d’Or, five-star reviews in Goldberg, Musica, and Fonoforum, and enthusiastic articles in Fanfare, Télérama, Gramophone and Le Monde de la Musique. She also accompanied Hugo Reyne (csakan) on the CD “Viennoiseries Musicales “(Musiques à la Chabotterie).
Polish of Vietnamese descent composer and pianist, Ania Vu (née Vũ Đặng Minh Anh) is pursuing a Ph.D. as a Benjamin Franklin Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Her recent music explores varied notions of time, musical energy related to form, and the interplay between linguistical sound properties and meanings. Ania also writes her own text in Polish that then serve as points of departure in her compositional process. Her current mentors are Marcos Balter, James Primosch, and Anna Weesner. In 2017, she received her BM in composition and theory from the Eastman School of Music.
Ania is a recipient of an Honorable Mention and a two-time finalist of the ASCAP Morton Gould Competition Young Composers Awards, and a finalist of the 2019 Kaleidoscope Call for Scores. She has been invited to attend Tanglewood as a Composer Fellow for the summer of 2020 (which was held online due to COVID-19, and now postponed to 2021). Upcoming events include a residency at I-Park Foundation, and a collaboration with SO percussion.
Her music has been performed by the Daedalus and MIVOS Quartets, TAK ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Iridium Saxophone Quartet, and has been heard at several festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Center, Tage Neuer Musik in Regensburg (Germany), Valencia International Performance Academy (Spain), Red Note New Music Festival (USA), SoundSCAPE (Italy), and Women in Music (USA).
For more information about her piano background, performances and teaching, please scroll down to Piano.
Outside of music, Ania has a passion for languages, and speaks fluent English, Polish, French, and Vietnamese, in addition to having studied Latin and German; currently, she is working on learning Modern Greek. She also enjoys traveling - having visited 30 countries so far -, wandering in all kinds of museums, and ballroom dancing.
Ania is a recipient of an Honorable Mention and a two-time finalist of the ASCAP Morton Gould Competition Young Composers Awards, and a finalist of the 2019 Kaleidoscope Call for Scores. She has been invited to attend Tanglewood as a Composer Fellow for the summer of 2020 (which was held online due to COVID-19, and now postponed to 2021). Upcoming events include a residency at I-Park Foundation, and a collaboration with SO percussion.
Her music has been performed by the Daedalus and MIVOS Quartets, TAK ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, and the Iridium Saxophone Quartet, and has been heard at several festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Center, Tage Neuer Musik in Regensburg (Germany), Valencia International Performance Academy (Spain), Red Note New Music Festival (USA), SoundSCAPE (Italy), and Women in Music (USA).
For more information about her piano background, performances and teaching, please scroll down to Piano.
Outside of music, Ania has a passion for languages, and speaks fluent English, Polish, French, and Vietnamese, in addition to having studied Latin and German; currently, she is working on learning Modern Greek. She also enjoys traveling - having visited 30 countries so far -, wandering in all kinds of museums, and ballroom dancing.
Born in Ukraine, Sofia Yatsyuk moved to the United Kingdom in 2006 to study at the Purcell School of Music. She completed her undergraduate degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London under the tutelage of Mateja Marinkovic, and her master’s at McGill University in Montreal with Axel Strauss.
Sofia made her orchestral debut with the Ternopil Symphony Orchestra in 2014. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Ukraine, Italy, Slovenia, Poland, China, Canada, France and the United Kingdom, including performances at Giuseppe Tartini’s house in Piran and the Parliament building in London. In 2019, Sofia was on staff at the West Island Music Academy in Montreal and a member of the El Sistema Encore programme in Kahnawake. She is currently the principal violinist of Sinfonia de l’Ouest and a member of Orchestre Nouvelle Génération in Montreal.
Over the last two years Sofia was the winner of the Marusia Yaworska Scholarship award, winner of the Kathleen Trust Award and recipient of the Heinz Saueressig scholarship for academic excellence. Sofia is currently a doctoral candidate in violin performance at McGill University, Schulich School of Music. Her dissertation research is focused on women composers of the late 19th and early 20th century within Britain and France. Striving to discover and promote music which is not receiving the recognition it deserves, she hopes to continue creating space for marginalised voices to be heard
Sofia made her orchestral debut with the Ternopil Symphony Orchestra in 2014. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Ukraine, Italy, Slovenia, Poland, China, Canada, France and the United Kingdom, including performances at Giuseppe Tartini’s house in Piran and the Parliament building in London. In 2019, Sofia was on staff at the West Island Music Academy in Montreal and a member of the El Sistema Encore programme in Kahnawake. She is currently the principal violinist of Sinfonia de l’Ouest and a member of Orchestre Nouvelle Génération in Montreal.
Over the last two years Sofia was the winner of the Marusia Yaworska Scholarship award, winner of the Kathleen Trust Award and recipient of the Heinz Saueressig scholarship for academic excellence. Sofia is currently a doctoral candidate in violin performance at McGill University, Schulich School of Music. Her dissertation research is focused on women composers of the late 19th and early 20th century within Britain and France. Striving to discover and promote music which is not receiving the recognition it deserves, she hopes to continue creating space for marginalised voices to be heard
Nicola Hands – Oboe/Oboe D’amore/Cor Anglais
Born in Nottingham in 1987, Nicola Hands graduated in 2013 with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music Masters programme, where she studied oboe with Melanie Ragge and cor anglais with Jill Crowther. Nicola is a busy freelance performer based in London, and whose playing has been described by local reviewers in Nottingham and Cambridge as both ‘beguiling’ and ‘exquisite’, and according to MusicWeb International her ‘warm, full tone is affecting’.
Nicola was the 2nd oboe and principal cor anglais player for the Orquestra do Norte, Portugal from 2015 to 2017, and has been on trial with the Philharmonia Orchestra. As a freelance performer Nicola has played regularly with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the Chameleon Orchestra and the Orpheus Sinfonia as well as many other orchestras in and around London, and is an extra player for English National Opera, English National Ballet and Orquestra Metropolitana in Lisbon. Nicola also plays for musical theatre; from September 2013 to February 2014 she was the oboe and cor anglais player for ‘The Light Princess’ by Tori Amos at the National Theatre, and has played for ‘Miss Saigon’ in the Prince Edward Theatre.
Nicola is also very active as a soloist and chamber musician. As a concert soloist, Nicola has performed the Martinů Concerto with St. Paul’s Sinfonia in 2019, the Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto with West Forest Sinfonia, the Mozart Oboe Concerto at Jesus College, Cambridge and the Strauss Oboe Concerto in St. Mary’s Church, Nottingham. In 2015 she was awarded a Jellinek soloist’s award by Croydon Symphony Orchestra, and as a result performed the Albinoni D minor concerto in Guildford in 2016 and returned to St. Mary's Church, Nottingham in 2016 for a solo performance of the Marcello D Minor concerto.
Nicola also enjoys giving solo recitals, and has performed in venues such as St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. James Piccadilly, St. Mary's Perivale, Winchester Cathedral, Peterborough Cathedral, St. George’s Hanover Square, St. James’s Church Paddington and Waltham Abbey as a soloist with pianist Jonathan Pease. The duo was selected to appear in the Making Music Selected Artists guide and is supported by the Concordia Foundation. In 2020 the duo released their first album, Light and Shade, in which ‘Hands’ performances are a wonderful demonstration of the diversity of the oboe and cor anglais repertoire’ and ‘Hands really makes the oboe melodies sing and cohere’.MusicWeb International said of the duo’s recording of Poem by Marina Dranishnikova that ‘It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive and sincere performance of Poem than it receives here.’ The duo released their 2ndalbum, ‘Phoenix’ in early 2021.
In 2019 Nicola co-founded the ‘Tailleferre Ensemble’, a chamber collective whose aims are to support women in music and perform lesser-known chamber works.
In 2012 Nicola was awarded the Evelyn Barbirolli prize for oboe and the Grimaldi Cor Anglais Scholarship at the Royal Academy, and in 2013 she won the concerto class of the Hastings Music Festival Concerto Competition playing the Martinů oboe concerto. In 2013 she was also Highly Commended in the Leila Bull oboe prize at the Academy.
During her Masters Nicola played in many high-profile performances, including principal oboe for Sir Colin Davis, Thierry Fischer and Yan Pascal Tortelier and cor anglais for Jac van Steen and Semyon Bychkov with the Academy Symphony Orchestra. She also performed the solo oboe part in Bainbridge’s Concertante in Moto Perpetuo with the Academy Manson Ensemble conducted by Franck Ollu, in a special birthday celebration concert for the composer.
Before attending the Royal Academy, Nicola completed an MA in languages at Cambridge University. She was very active as both an oboist and a choral scholar in Cambridge. With the help of instrumental and choral scholarships from Jesus College, she was able to pursue her musical ambition, finding many opportunities to perform as both an ensemble player and soloist in the Cambridge music scene.
Born in Nottingham in 1987, Nicola Hands graduated in 2013 with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music Masters programme, where she studied oboe with Melanie Ragge and cor anglais with Jill Crowther. Nicola is a busy freelance performer based in London, and whose playing has been described by local reviewers in Nottingham and Cambridge as both ‘beguiling’ and ‘exquisite’, and according to MusicWeb International her ‘warm, full tone is affecting’.
Nicola was the 2nd oboe and principal cor anglais player for the Orquestra do Norte, Portugal from 2015 to 2017, and has been on trial with the Philharmonia Orchestra. As a freelance performer Nicola has played regularly with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the Chameleon Orchestra and the Orpheus Sinfonia as well as many other orchestras in and around London, and is an extra player for English National Opera, English National Ballet and Orquestra Metropolitana in Lisbon. Nicola also plays for musical theatre; from September 2013 to February 2014 she was the oboe and cor anglais player for ‘The Light Princess’ by Tori Amos at the National Theatre, and has played for ‘Miss Saigon’ in the Prince Edward Theatre.
Nicola is also very active as a soloist and chamber musician. As a concert soloist, Nicola has performed the Martinů Concerto with St. Paul’s Sinfonia in 2019, the Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto with West Forest Sinfonia, the Mozart Oboe Concerto at Jesus College, Cambridge and the Strauss Oboe Concerto in St. Mary’s Church, Nottingham. In 2015 she was awarded a Jellinek soloist’s award by Croydon Symphony Orchestra, and as a result performed the Albinoni D minor concerto in Guildford in 2016 and returned to St. Mary's Church, Nottingham in 2016 for a solo performance of the Marcello D Minor concerto.
Nicola also enjoys giving solo recitals, and has performed in venues such as St. Martin-in-the-Fields, St. James Piccadilly, St. Mary's Perivale, Winchester Cathedral, Peterborough Cathedral, St. George’s Hanover Square, St. James’s Church Paddington and Waltham Abbey as a soloist with pianist Jonathan Pease. The duo was selected to appear in the Making Music Selected Artists guide and is supported by the Concordia Foundation. In 2020 the duo released their first album, Light and Shade, in which ‘Hands’ performances are a wonderful demonstration of the diversity of the oboe and cor anglais repertoire’ and ‘Hands really makes the oboe melodies sing and cohere’.MusicWeb International said of the duo’s recording of Poem by Marina Dranishnikova that ‘It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive and sincere performance of Poem than it receives here.’ The duo released their 2ndalbum, ‘Phoenix’ in early 2021.
In 2019 Nicola co-founded the ‘Tailleferre Ensemble’, a chamber collective whose aims are to support women in music and perform lesser-known chamber works.
In 2012 Nicola was awarded the Evelyn Barbirolli prize for oboe and the Grimaldi Cor Anglais Scholarship at the Royal Academy, and in 2013 she won the concerto class of the Hastings Music Festival Concerto Competition playing the Martinů oboe concerto. In 2013 she was also Highly Commended in the Leila Bull oboe prize at the Academy.
During her Masters Nicola played in many high-profile performances, including principal oboe for Sir Colin Davis, Thierry Fischer and Yan Pascal Tortelier and cor anglais for Jac van Steen and Semyon Bychkov with the Academy Symphony Orchestra. She also performed the solo oboe part in Bainbridge’s Concertante in Moto Perpetuo with the Academy Manson Ensemble conducted by Franck Ollu, in a special birthday celebration concert for the composer.
Before attending the Royal Academy, Nicola completed an MA in languages at Cambridge University. She was very active as both an oboist and a choral scholar in Cambridge. With the help of instrumental and choral scholarships from Jesus College, she was able to pursue her musical ambition, finding many opportunities to perform as both an ensemble player and soloist in the Cambridge music scene.
Canadian soprano, Rose Hegele, is an active performer of 20th and 21st century art music. Specializing in contemporary opera, chamber music, and improvisation, Hegele is passionate about creating performance experiences that facilitate collaboration, human connection, embodiment, and presence. Past highlights include performing in a Tanglewood Learning Institute masterclass featuring members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus with Dawn Upshaw, an artist residency and performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire at Clark University, performances of Jennifer Walshe's music and a Brandeis University student composition premiere with Sound Icon ensemble, performing as the soprano lead in the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra’s The Phantom of the Opera at “A Day of Silents” in San Francisco, premiering the role of “Joan of Arc” in The Passion of St. Joan of Arc with the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, acting as the “Guide” in Trajal Harrell’s Caen Amour at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, and premiering the roles of “Venus,” “Doctor,” and “First Lady” in Andy Vores’s Chrononhotonthologos with Guerilla Opera. Hegele was awarded a Post-Master’s Degree Fellowship from the Berklee College of Music for the 2018 to 2019 academic year. She holds a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Classical Music Performance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Performance and Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music.