Staff notes Assistant Head of Programmes Dr Natasha Loges has written a book with alumna Dr Katy Hamilton. Published by Cambridge University Press, Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance explores Brahms’ public and private musical identities. Natasha and Katy discuss the boundaries between the composer’s professional identity and his lifelong engagement with amateur musicmaking. As part of BBC Radio 3’s Brahms Experience Week in October, Natasha also gave daily talks on Brahms’ life and the wider world in which he lived for broadcast on The Essay.
Photo © Chris Christodoulou
RCM Chairman Professor Robert Winston has been awarded an honorary degree from Birmingham City University. The award ceremony took place on Tuesday 2 September at Symphony Hall in Birmingham.
Adrian Butterfield and Rachel Brown with Laurence Cummings
Professor of baroque violin Adrian Butterfield and professor of baroque flute Rachel Brown have performed in the London Handel Players’ Carnegie Hall debut. Adrian has also directed the Trinity Laban Baroque Orchestra at the Greenwich Early Music Festival in the Old Royal Naval College Chapel. The Champs Hill Mendelssohn String Quartets four-disc set, which features Quartet in Association the Sacconis playing the composer’s String Quartet no 2 in A minor, has been named BBC Music Magazine’s chamber disc of the month. It received a five-star review for both the performance and the recording. Recorder consort professor María Martínez’s recorder quintet ‘Seldom Sene’ has won three prizes at the International Van Wassenaer Early Music Competition in Utrecht. Having been awarded 97 out of 100 points, the highest mark in the history of the competition, the quintet received the First Prize, Press Prize and Audience Award.
Junior Department piano teacher Nataša Lipovšek’s inaugural Wimbledon Piano Masterclass has taken place. The week’s lively coaching sessions culminated in a successful final concert at St Mark’s Church in Wimbledon in August. The programme included Debussy’s Piano Trio and Lavignac’s Galop for eight hands on one piano. RCM Director of Opera Michael Rosewell has appeared on Inside Opera: Live. The unique online event offered unprecedented behind-the-scenes access and insight into opera. Streamed on the Guardian website and YouTube it included specially commissioned films from all the major British opera companies, live interviews with singers and directors, and live links to rehearsals, backstage and community activities. Junior Department piano teacher Clara Rodriguez has featured in Issue 77 of Pianist Magazine. Clara was interviewed about her time studying at the RCM and her work on Spanish and Latin American music. She also wrote an article on Albéniz’s Suite Española for the magazine and her publication on Ruiz’s children’s pieces, Piano Pieces for Children Under 100 Years of Age, was reviewed. Assistant Head of Programmes Dr Anastasia Belina-Johnson is collaborating with Professor Derek Scott (University of Leeds) on a new five-year research project, supported by a European Research Council grant, entitled ‘German Operetta in London and New York, 1907–1939: Cultural Transfer and Transformation’. Anastasia will direct an operetta, publish original research, edit a volume of writings on operetta in general, and produce a monograph ‘German Operetta in Poland in 1907–1937’.
Academic Registrar Elly Taylor has participated in the London to Brighton Bike Ride in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Elly and her team raised over £800 for the charity. 18
Seldom Sene
Photo © Sarah Wijzenbeek
Professor of Performance Science Aaron Williamon has given a talk on performance anxiety at Wigmore Hall as part of the Anxiety Arts Festival. He introduced the Centre for Performance Science’s ongoing research on music performance anxiety and transported the Performance Simulator to the hall to give delegates an opportunity to experience the stress of performing in front of an audience.