Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama - Newspaper - Issue 2, Summer 2015

FREE SUMMER 2015 ISSUE 2

Image: Robert Workman

Inside the ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE

www.rwcmd.ac.uk

A Golden Age for RWCMD Opera A

s RWCMD’s MA in Opera Performance course celebrates its fifth anniversary, the contribution being made in Wales to the future of opera internationally is in no doubt. It is by any definition a golden age for the College, whose graduates are being taken on every year by the National Opera Studio and the UK’s leading opera companies.

This success is due at least in part to the strength of the College’s professional partnerships. Benefitting from its unique position within an energised sector in Wales, the College is able to provide valuable opportunities for its students to collaborate with some of the UK’s most exciting and groundbreaking companies, each working in their own way to develop new talent, new work and new audiences for opera.

With David Pountney - one of opera’s most enigmatic figures - at the helm of Welsh National Opera and committed to working in partnership with the College to find and nurture the best new talent, students now have unprecedented access to the national opera company’s inner sanctum.

Wales’ Rising Stars

Recently, this has extended to opportunities for several students to perform as part of the professional ensemble in WNO’s main stage productions – The Three Boys in the company’s current revival of The Magic Flute are played in rotation by six of RWCMD’s female singers.

Baritone Emyr Wyn Jones - winner of the hotly contested Bruce Millar Gulliver opera prize earlier this year – was one of three RWCMD students to appear in WNO’s Welsh language production, Gair a Gnawd, in April, and he has just been cast as cover for two roles in the company’s forthcoming new production of Peter Pan by composer Richard Ayres.

“I think there’s a real commitment from WNO to giving young singers opportunities to develop professionally,” says Emyr. “Many of their singers and almost all of their music staff work in College regularly, either as coaches or mentors. That helps to break down some of the barriers. For me, it means that going in there doesn’t feel so daunting - it’s just an extension of what I do in College.”

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MA Opera students Katrina Nimmo, Jenny Bianco and Rachel Mills in The Magic Flute at Welsh National Opera

The College has also built up a close working relationship with Music Theatre Wales – one of the leading lights in promoting new and contemporary British opera. This has led to exciting opportunities for students at the College to explore and add to the repertoire. Last term, singers worked under the direction of the company’s Artistic Directors Michael McCarthy and Michael Rafferty for a one-off performance of scenes from contemporary operas in the College’s Richard Burton Theatre. As well as giving the singers the chance to work in the contemporary idiom, it also provided audiences with the rare opportunity to hear new work by some of the most important living composers.

Also last term, Music Theatre Wales worked with RWCMD’s student composers and their librettists as part of the Make an Aria project.

Audiences will have another opportunity to experience the fruits of this dynamic collaboration in performances of the new arias at St Fagan’s National History Museum on 7th July.

Performance Design: Summer Celebrations

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Jazz Weekender

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Bringing Hollywood Home

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Young Brass Musician 2015

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The College’s Opera-in-aVan project has been seen by almost 2,000 primary school children across Wales.

Continued from page 1 Another bold move by the College into the world of professional opera was a joint production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea last year with Mid Wales Opera, which has established itself as one of the foremost small-scale British touring opera companies.The production, which brought together some of the College’s singers and instrumentalists alongside Rachel Podger’s Brecon Baroque, was described as a ‘happy collaboration’

by Rian Evans in her 4-star review for The Guardian.

RWCMD’s own work has also gone from strength to strength, bringing together the talents of the whole of its creative community across music, opera, production and design departments.

Main stage collaborations with some of the most exciting British opera directors of their generation have

raised the bar for in-house productions.

Martin Constantine, the founder of ENO Opera Works, has recently taken up the position of International Chair at the College, directing Albert Herring - his fifth opera for RWCMD - in the spring. And this summer’s production of Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen with the RWCMD Chamber Orchestra at Sherman Cymru will be directed by Harry Fehr, whose future engagements include Orlando for WNO next season.

The College also makes a significant contribution to education in Wales.

This year, its Opera-In-A-Van workshop project – The Old Man Who Loved Cheese by Edward Barnes – has already introduced the genre to almost 2,000 children across South Wales from as young as four years old. A free performance for families will take place in the College’s foyer space on 6th June.

Finally, a survey of RWCMD’s operatic output would be incomplete without mention of the contribution made by a growing number of student-led projects under the umbrella of RepCo a company run by RWCMD students, which receives social enterprise funding from the Welsh Government and the European Regional Development Fund. Opera’r Ddraig is one of RepCo’s biggest success stories to date and has grown into an independent producing company which focusses on developing new talent by creating opportunities for singers, stage managers, directors, designers, conductors and orchestral musicians in Wales and beyond to gain professional experience in the early stages of their careers.

There’s a real commitment from Welsh National Opera to giving young singers opportunities to develop professionally.

Two further companies are currently active under the RepCo umbrella. Bute Park Opera extends the performance opportunities for the College’s many

postgraduate singers who are not on the MA Opera Performance programme (fewer than 10 singers each year train on the two-year intensive course). The company, now in its second year, performs Massenet’s Cendrillon as part of Repco Week in the College’s Richard Burton Theatre in June. Pocket Opera, conceived as an outreach company, staged its first production in the spring – an innovative take on Britten’s The Little Sweep - for children in four Cardiff primary schools.

Embracing the spirit of collaboration, innovation, outreach, and entrepreneurship, opera seems to be very much alive and well at the College. Opera lovers should take no small comfort that its future is in the strongest hands.

College Welcomes BBC Singers of the World

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he BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, held every two years, is billed as the premier showcase for opera and concert singers at the outset of their careers. This year, 20 finalists from five continents will compete at St David’s Hall for a title that could propel them to the top of the international opera circuit. Alongside the main competition runs the Song Prize, for which the finalists perform more intimate recitals – already sold out – in the Dora Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

BBC Radio 3 will broadcast live from the College throughout the week.

Angela Livingstone - under whose leadership the College’s reputation in the field of opera has sky-rocketed - was one of the three experts who travelled to venues around the world to audition the shortlisted candidates.

She has also been instrumental in the introduction of a programme of ‘fringe’ events at the College, which will offer audiences more of a festival-like experience and provide some of the College’s students with an international platform.

One of the students performing in the fringe programme is Andrew Henley, a tenor from Monmouth,

currently in the first year of the MA Opera Performance course at RWCMD. He played the title role in the College’s production of Britten’s Albert Herring in the spring and is already set to join the chorus of Glyndebourne Festival Opera for the summer season.

“Watching the competition on television while I was growing up was one of the things that motivated me to pursue

solo singing,” says Henley. “Having the opportunity to

perform as part of the fringe programme alongside these incredibly talented singers is one that I’m massively looking forward to.”

Henley and some of the College’s other top singers will also take part in public masterclasses, alongside some of the competition finalists, given by leading opera figures including Dame Kiri Takanawa and David Pountney.

Image: Brian Tarr

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Designs on Summer F

rom Cardiff to the Czech Republic, summer 2015 is the perfect time to immerse yourself in the world of performance design.

Whether you’re interested in art, design, music or theatre, the world of performance design offers a feast for all the senses. As well as set, costume and lighting designs for theatre, the versatile art form encompasses

site-specific and multimedia performances, soundscapes and installations in a whole range of settings from street theatre to largescale music festivals, concert tours and international sporting events.

So if you want to be inspired and amazed, get along to one of these events this summer and immerse yourself in the vision, skills and creativity of performance design.

Balance 2015 WHERE Bargehouse, South Bank, London WHEN 3rd - 5th July

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n July, RWCMD’s design and production team heads to the South Bank at the heart of cultural London to present Balance, the College’s annual exhibition of design for performance.

The exhibition promises models, costumes, puppetry, drawings, lighting, installation, sound and film – showcasing the very best work of graduating students from the college’s production and design courses. For students, the exhibition is an opportunity to showcase their work to the industry and for the public, it’s the chance to discover the theatre designers of tomorrow. www.rwcmd.ac.uk/balance

Make: Believe WHERE V&A, London WHEN July 2015 - January 2016

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n the UK in July, highlights from the Society of British Theatre Designers (SBTD) national exhibition opens at the V&A. Make: Believe is a celebration of the best of British theatre design over the last four years, featuring work from some of the country’s most innovative and successful designers. It opened at Nottingham Trent University this spring, and a selection of designers have been selected to exhibit at the V&A, and then in a national touring exhibition. Among them are Lizzie French and Cadi Lane - the design team behind Volcano Theatre’s Black Stuff, which was their first professional job after graduating from RWCMD last summer. Their designs will be exhibited alongside work by fellow RWCMD graduates Colin Richmond, Tupac Martir and Becky Davies.

Just Add Water WHERE Bute Theatre, RWCMD WHEN 4th - 8th July

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xperience the mysteries of the deep and the thrill of the seven seas this summer, as RWCMD puppeteers take you through a fantastical journey through oceans of time and imagination. This family show combines music, puppetry and storytelling, as the audience follow the performers through the buildings and grounds of the College. Look out for some glorious sea creatures and an appearance by Queen Victoria in her bathing suit and prepare to get wet!

The puppetry performance is one of the highlights of the RWCMD calendar, and the

project has inspired many former students to specialise in the field of puppetry after they graduate. Rachael Canning is a designer and co-director of The Wrong Crowd – their latest production Swanhunter (a co-production with Opera North) fuses puppetry and opera. It opened at the Royal Opera House and is now touring the UK. But you’ll have to wait until next year for Max Humphries’ puppets for Cirque Du Soleil’s as yet unnamed 2016 show to be revealed – Max has been appointed as the company’s Chief Puppet Designer. www.rwcmd.ac.uk

Brad Caleb Lee, who is studying for an MA in Theatre Design at RWCMD, is co-designing the V&A exhibition: “Make/Believe celebrates the process and products of the richness that is British theatre design, showcasing models, working sketches, costume drawings, videos, sounds, puppets, and costumes from over 55 designers, with work selected ranging from small community-based projects to the Royal Opera House to international collaborations, including - among others - Tom Piper, Es Devlin, Paul Brown, Bob Crowley and Connor Murphy.”

The last national SBTD exhibition in 2011 was held at RWCMD, bringing the work of over 200 leading British theatre designers to the College for a month-long festival of performance design. www.theatredesign.org.uk

PQ2015 WHERE Prague, Czech Republic WHEN June 18th - 28th

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nyone who’s anyone in the world of performance design will be heading to the beautiful city of Prague this summer for the world’s largest scenography event since World Stage Design, which was hosted at RWCMD in 2013. The Prague Quadrennial is a 10-day celebration of all aspects of design for performance – from costume, set, lighting and sound design to site-specific, applied scenography, urban performance, costume as performance, and much more.

Exhibitions, workshops, talks and performances take place at locations throughout the city, but even if you’re not in town for the conference, it’s hard to miss.

The city streets are filled with free performances throughout the festival – from promenade performances to experimental performance art.

40 students from the College’s design, music, acting and stage management courses will travel to Prague to perform a preview of puppetry production, Just Add Water, before it returns for its Cardiff run. The performance will be part of the OISTAT (the international organisation of scenographers, theatre architects and technicians) celebration day at PQ15, led by RWCMD’s Ian Evans. www.pq.cz

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In Profile

Matthew Rhys Following his first meeting and workshop with acting and musical theatre students at the College, Helen Dunning caught up with Hollywood Actor Matthew Rhys, who is one of RWCMD’s new International Chairs in Drama.

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ctor Matthew Rhys is back in his home town of Cardiff, filming for Kurt Sutter’s new medieval drama The Bastard Executioner. Recently appointed as one of RWCMD’s International Chairs in Drama, Rhys also made his first visit to the College, working with acting students on scenes from episodes of his hit television series The Americans and taking part in a Q&A session.

Since graduating from RADA, Rhys has worked on the stage, big screen and small screen in Wales, the UK and the USA.

He starred alongside Kathleen Turner in the acclaimed stage adaptation of The Graduate in the West End, played Dylan Thomas in the film The Edge of Love, and is perhaps most recognisable for his role as Kevin Walker in the long-running US TV series Brothers and Sisters. He currently stars alongside Keri Russell in The Americans, about two undercover Soviet KGB agents posing as an ordinary American suburban couple, and his next role is Lockwood the hunter, in Warner Bros. new motion-capture film adaptation of The Jungle Book.

This is your first visit to the College since accepting the role of International Chair in Drama, what do you hope you can bring to the students?

I was delighted to accept the role of International Chair because the training here at the Royal Welsh College is second to none. When you combine the level of training here, with these facilities, it’s little wonder it’s at the top of its game. The students have that eager, hungry spirit and they ask you things you haven’t thought

of in years. Acting is an overcrowded and daunting profession and I wanted to give them the opportunity to ask all the questions that only a working actor with real life experience in the industry can answer.

There’s been a lot of discussion in the media lately about the relevance of actor training. You trained at RADA. If you could do it all again, would you go to drama college?

For me it’s an essential toolkit and I don’t see the argument against

something that gives you as many tools as possible. There’s no question that I needed training and I wouldn’t be where I am without it. It means that you hit the ground running, and it really pays off when you’re out there actually doing the work.

Training for me made rehearsal and character work that much more accessible whether for stage, film or theatre. It’s certainly given me a foundation that’s been paramount to staying grounded in the madness that is Los Angeles.

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What areas of training did you find particularly helpful?

Training also focuses on the technical side of performance, including vocal and physical work.

It helped me directly because before I went to drama school I used to lose my voice during a performance, purely from a technical point of view because I was jutting my head forward and shouting from my throat.

One of the hardest things to get over is ego and insecurity. We had one teacher who would make us do the most outlandish, difficult, sometimes risqué scene studies, playing to the opposite of our strengths and in front of the entire year. His point was that if you can fall flat on your face in front of your peers then everything after that seems easy.

The students have that eager, hungry spirit and they ask you things you haven’t thought of in years.

The New Generation of Welsh Acting Talent Tom Rhys Harries

Based on your varied career on both stage and screen so far, what advice are you most keen to pass on to the students?

One of the key things an actor needs is the ability to adapt as the business is changing constantly and you have to be flexible. In my opinion, theatre is where an actor has the greatest amount of freedom, whereas film and television is a greater marriage of performance and technical skill. The more you hone these skills the greater your freedom on set increases.

Your greatest ally when shooting is to know your lines inside out. The director will always be making last minute changes and if the lines are a part of you when you go on set you’ll be better able to cope with that. Anthony Hopkins is a great believer in meticulous preparation.

His eloquent advice to me when we were both filming Titus was, ‘Be early, learn your lines, be bold and greater Gods will come to your aid’.

The College’s International Chairs are supported by the Jane Hodge Foundation.

Matthew Rhys works through scenes from episodes of hit television series The Americans with acting students at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

“There has probably never been a better time to be Welsh, in terms of the appetite for performers in the profession,” says David Bond, head of RWCMD’s actor training. And despite recent accusations in the media that the acting profession is dominated by former pupils of English public schools, a recent article in The Observer heralded a ‘rich new seam of Welsh talent’ to prove Bond’s point.

Following in the footsteps of leading men from Wales including Matthew Rhys, Michael Sheen, Ioan Grufydd and Rhys Ifans - who have already made their names on stage and screen on both sides of the Atlantic – are a new generation of RWCMD-trained Welsh actors with growing reputations.

Downton Abbey’s Tom Cullen has prominent roles in forthcoming films alongside Alex Kingston (Happily Ever After) and Idris Elba (A Hundred Streets). Alexander Vlahos has starred in Merlin and Privates for the BBC, and has just finished filming the new TV megadrama Versailles. After leads in Cilla and The White Queen, Aneurin Barnard has landed a role in a new BBC adaptation of War and Peace. And Tom Rhys Harries is currently filming a 10part update of Jekyll and Hyde for ITV. He will also play the eponymous role of Crow in the film adaptation of Tim Rhys’ play later this year.

Eve Myles made her name in Torchwood, and appeared as a lead character in the second series of the ITV hit drama Broadchurch.

Kimberley Nixon is also much indemand for television roles – she’s starred in Fresh Meat and Hebburn, and her latest project is the medical drama Critical for Sky 1.

Kimberley Nixon

On stage, Bridgend-born Amy Morgan stars opposite fellow Welsh actor Owen Teale in The Broken Heart for Shakespeare’s Globe, and Annes Elwy, who graduated from the College in 2014, was described by The Guardian as “deeply moving” in her role in the acclaimed Yen at Manchester’s Royal Exchange.

Tom Cullen

Amy Morgan “There is a curiosity about Wales now, and we certainly see ourselves as a major player,” says Bond adding that the reputation of Royal Welsh College is also spreading across the pond to top casting directors in America.

“There is an expectation that we will deliver,” he says. “The actors we produce have a great work ethic and no interest in the nonsense and glitz of the business.

They simply deal with all that if it comes along.”

Alex Vlahos

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Leading the Way in Arts Management A

t the end of last year, the Arts Council of Wales published its new five-year strategy.

While it sets out an ambitious vision for a creative Wales where the arts are central to the life of the nation, it makes no bones about the challenges that lie ahead - the artists and organisations that flourish in the future will be those led by ‘highly skilled cultural entrepreneurs who can demonstrate effective management’.

Enter Karen Pimbley, who leads the College’s Masters’ programme in Arts Management aimed at nurturing and developing future leaders for the arts.

“Our aim is to produce graduates who have the potential to demonstrate real leadership in the creative sector,” she says. “The training provides them with a range of practical skills and experience that will enable them to rise to the challenges of increasing access and participation, harnessing new technologies and working in a global context. Not to mention the issue of income generation.”

Richard Tynen is a guest lecturer on the course. He is a former Director of Development at Wales Millennium Centre and founder of The Funding Centre, a Cardiff-based consultancy with clients all over the UK. “Good fundraisers are in demand now more than ever. As public subsidy dries up, there is increasing pressure for artists and organisations to find new income streams and develop more creative funding strategies,” says Tynen.

“The marketplace for fundraising jobs is incredibly buoyant. The sector is crying out for skilled fundraisers - but the right training is essential.

An inexperienced fundraiser has the potential to do more harm than good - a skilled fundraiser can transform the fortunes of an organisation.”

Marie Wood is Head of Revenue Fundraising at the College as well as leading the fundraising and development module within the arts management programme. “Very few of our students arrive here with their sights set on a career as a fundraiser,” she says.

“Fundraising needs to be championed as an attractive career choice within the arts. The fact is that most jobs now require you to be multi-skilled, and to have at least some fundraising experience, especially in small organisations. Even if it’s education and outreach that you’re really interested in, you are likely to need some understanding of fundraising and the ability to work with donors

No Fit State Circus – one of the partner organisations RWCMD’s Arts Management students will be working with this term.

and sponsors if you want to deliver projects successfully.”

“Arts Management is a broad term,” says Pimbley, “but ‘the ‘catch-all’ course title reflects our students’ diverse backgrounds, the flexibility of the training we provide, the many varied career outcomes, and the transferable nature of the skills we teach.

“Many of our students have focussed on the performance or creative side as undergraduates and are aiming for careers as creative producers or orchestral managers. Some of them have experience of working in the arts and are looking to fill a ‘skills gap’ to help progress their careers or move in a new direction. Others are looking for a complete career change.

The course structure is flexible enough to accommodate the goals of a broad range of students.

“The career outcomes are equally as varied – some graduates have gone into specialist fundraising or marketing roles within large organisations, others have set up their own projects.

Many are freelance project managers or creative producers. Although the practical tasks and placements focus on arts settings, the skills we teach can be applied in a range of settings within the wider cultural and creative industries, or in the charity sector, even in business.”

In 2013, when she was appointed to lead the College’s training for arts managers, Pimbley set about restructuring the course along the same lines as the College’s other training programmes - placing core skills, practical experience, professional collaborations and employability at the centre of the training.

“We don’t do essays,” she says emphatically. “It’s all about workbased learning and creative tasks that reflect real-life scenarios. For example, to assess the students’ understanding and skills in fundraising, they have to present to a panel of decision-makers from businesses that are involved in sponsoring projects in the real world.

To assess their understanding and skills in education and community involvement, they work as a team to develop a practical proposal for an original project. I suppose it’s a bit like The Apprentice,” she laughs, “it really tests their skills in teamworking, leadership and entrepreneurship.”

“Here at the College, the students have the opportunity to gain experience of various roles within the venues, box

office, marketing and production teams. ‘In-house’ placements have also included working in the College’s Edinburgh Fringe venue, helping to organise a Jazz Time residency at the Hay Festival, and assisting with the production of the new writing season. That experience forms a core part of the training and the basis for assessment.”

Pimbley has also taken advantage of the College’s unique position as the National Conservatoire of Wales to establish partnerships with the wide range of professional organisations in Cardiff and beyond. For the whole of the summer term, students will be based outside the College working on professional placements with organisations including the Arts Council of Wales, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Hijinx Theatre Company, Sinfonia Cymru and No Fit State Circus.

It’s all about work-based learning and creative tasks that reflect reallife scenarios.

Lucy Price is spending ten weeks working with SWICA, the organisation behind Cardiff Carnival. “It’s a small organisation so the whole team is really ‘hands on’. I’m going to be involved in everything from their Kickstarter fundraising campaign to their community workshops - helping children and disabled people to create magnificent costumes full of glitter. I can’t wait to get stuck in.”

The College is currently accepting applications for entry to the MA Arts Management programme in September. Students can choose to study on a full-time basis for one year, or on a more flexible, part-time basis. The College is also planning to make parts of the programme available as short courses in the near future.

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AmserJazzTime Weekender 2015

“After the AmserJazzTime on the Friday evening, we’ve got Get the Blessing – they’re very contemporary, and there’s a great sense of humour from the band,” explains Gardiner.

“They play quite esoteric music, including free improvisation, but they play it in a way that makes it accessible. I hope the audience will find it a lot of fun.

“It’s such a different experience to playing in an empty room with a panel of assessors

Get the Blessing

“ We ’ v e also got t h e

“The idea is that the performance assessment is really a professional experience. It’s in a proper venue, with proper technical support, with a full audience. And the public don’t necessarily know that the students are doing their exams.

pianist Darius Brubeck – his father Dave Brubeck performed very iconic pieces such as Take Five, pieces that changed the whole direction of jazz for some people. Darius plays some of these pieces, plus his own compositions.

He worked in South Africa for a long time, so there’s a South African flavour to his music.

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s the dwindling spring evening sun shines through into RWCMD’s glass-fronted foyer on a Friday evening, dozens of people gather after work to start their weekend, enjoying a drink, sharing tapas and soaking up sounds from emerging artists on the jazz scene.

Hall, the Richard Burton Theatre and the foyer.”

Gardiner put forward the idea, and was given a day dedicated to jazz as part of the four-day opening celebrations in June 2011.

RWCMD has become the mustbe place for jazz fans in Cardiff. The regular Friday evening AmserJazzTime sessions have attracted a large and loyal following, as Head of Jazz Paula Gardiner explains:

show them that you are a human being. There’s also something about the openness of the foyer space that adds to this feeling of welcoming the audience into the performance.”

“The audience for AmserJazzTime ranges from age 3 to 83, and most people come every week. It’s a bit of a community and the audience really get to know the personalities of the people who are playing.

And it was the space that inspired Gardiner to establish the weekly session. In 2011, just a few months before the College opened its brandnew facilities, she was playing a gig in the foyer space at the Barbican during the London Jazz Festival.

“There’s a big debate in jazz circles at the moment as to whether people should play shorter solos and impros to make the music more popular again.

But our audience seems to welcome whatever music the students play. You can play any music, however ‘difficult’ it is, if you let your audience in – if you

“There was a real buzz and after our gig, people were heading off into another one of the venues to see Sonny Rollins. I thought that with our new facilities, we could also host some sort of mini festival, with music in all of the three new spaces – the Dora Stoutzker

“We put on a Jazz Sunday, and that was the start of it all. It was a celebration of what we were doing at the time – we had student performances, we had graduates and we had professional artists – many of them are also tutors on the jazz course.”

The success of the event led to establishing AmserJazzTime as a regular event – supported by Arts Council Wales and the Colwinston Charitable Trust – and Jazz Sunday became an annual AmserJazzTime Weekender.

This year’s Weekender starts with the usual Friday night session, then runs throughout the weekend, with performances by RWCMD’s emerging artists, plus three special guest artists who bring an eclectic mix of music to the festival.

“I think of John Taylor – who’s headlining on the Saturday - as the father of contemporary British Jazz.

He worked with people like Kenny Wheeler and Norma Winstone, really crafting that uniquely British sound.

He’s coming to do a solo set, so I can imagine it’s going to be an absolutely pin drop moment - we’ll be hanging on to every note.”

And for the students at the College, the Weekender gives them a unique performance opportunity. Some of the gigs over the three-day festival will also double up as their end-of-year assessed recitals.

RWCMD has become the must-be place for jazz fans in Cardiff.

in a row at the back, writing things down. We have a team of examiners but we sit within the audience.”

Final year jazz pianist James Clark has an opportunity rarely offered to a musician at such an early stage of their career. He’s opted for a solo performance for his session, and has been programmed as the support act for John Taylor for his concert in the Dora Stoutzker Hall.

For others, they have the chance to work in ensemble, performing a variety of music.

“We’ve got a good variety of programming – there’ll be standard repertoire given a contemporary twist, some students doing a set of Thelonious Monk, others have been busy writing their own stuff.

There’s a real mix of flavours, and something for everyone.”

The AmserJazzTime Weekender runs from 15-17 May. For programme details and tickets see www.rwcmd.ac.uk/jazz Paula Gardiner also runs a Junior Jazz Summer School at RWCMD for musicians aged 8-18.

See www.rwcmd. ac.uk/summerschools for details.

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Round-Up Pomona Transfers to National Theatre

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omona – the play by Alistair McDowell that premiered at RWCMD in 2014 – is to be transferred to the National Theatre and the Manchester Royal Exchange this autumn. The play was commissioned

by RWCMD as part of its inaugural new writing season. Directed by Ned Bennett and produced in collaboration with the Royal Court, Pomona was programmed by the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond to critical acclaim following its debut at the College.

Jameson wins BBC Young Brass Award

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his summer, Justina Gringyte will play the title role in English National Opera’s production of Carmen – the first revival of Catalan director Calixto Bieito’s acclaimed 2012 production of Bizet’s fiery opera, set in the final days of Franco’s regime in Spain. This will be the Lithuanian mezzo-soprano’s role debut for ENO. Rhian Lois, who trained at RWCMD as an undergraduate, plays Frasquita in the same production, which will be broadcast live to cinemas across the UK on July 1st as part of ENO Screen. Gringyte was recently named Best Young Singer at the International Opera Awards.

Fringe Debut for Radio Actor

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rthur Hughes will play the male lead in acclaimed writer Jack Thorne’s new play The Solid Life of Sugar Water – a co-production between the Graeae Theatre Company and Theatre Royal Plymouth.

The two-hander will head for a month-long residency at the Edinburgh Fringe after its premiere in Plymouth. In 2010, Thorne’s play Bunny – a one-woman show starring RWCMD graduate Rosie Wyatt – won a Fringe First award. Hughes has been building a successful career in radio drama since winning the BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award in his final year at College.

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he songwriter behind Ed Sheeran’s number one hit single Thinking Out Loud is a graduate of RWCMD. Amy Wadge trained as an actor and has since carved out a successful career as a singer-songwriter. The double platinum single was written in just 20 minutes, while Wadge was visiting Sheeran and his parents and picked up one of his guitars. She will receive an Honorary Fellowship from the College at its graduation ceremony in July.

Two Graduates Debut at RSC

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wo acting graduates are making their debut at the RSC this summer. Joanna Vanderham – known for her television work in Banished, The Paradise and Dancing on the Edge – makes her RSC debut as Desdemona in the forthcoming production of Othello.

The production is directed by Iqbal Khan, who has also worked as a visiting director on several RWCMD productions. Catrin Stewart is currently appearing in The Jew of Malta and Love’s Sacrifice to great reviews – The Telegraph described her as “enigmatic, beguiling”.

Newspaper Design: Burning Red

Graduate Gringyte is ENO’s Carmen

Writing a Number One Hit Image: Stephen Fitzmaurice

Image: Catherine Ashmore / Royal Opera House

uphonium player Grant Jameson is the winner of the BBC Young Brass Award 2015. At the final – which was broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 – Jameson played alongside the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, in an arrangement of Paganini’s Carnival of Venice and Genesis by Joshua Jameson. “It feels amazing to win the award and to play with such a prestigious ensemble,” said Jameson, currently in the third year of his undergraduate studies at RWCMD. “I really think this is going to help launch my career as a soloist.”