Patrick Nunn (composer)

Patrick Nunn (b.1969, Kent, UK) studied composition with Frank Denyer at Dartington College of Arts, Gary Carpenter at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, and Simon Bainbridge and Jonathan Harvey whilst completing his PhD in composition at the Royal Academy of Music (funded by a PRS Scholarship).

Nunn has been the recipient of many awards, including the Birmingham New Millennium prize for Sentiment of an Invisible Omniscience (2010), the Alan Bush prize for Transilient Fragments (2008), a British Composers Award (solo/duet category) for Mercurial Sparks, Volatile Shadows (2006), and the BBC Radio 3 Composing for Children prize for Songs of Our Generation (1995). His work Pareidolia I for bass clarinet, electronics and sensors (Sonic Arts category, 2012) was the most recent of seven shortlisted works for the British Composers Awards.

Nunn’s music has been performed widely in the UK and on the continent and has featured at more than fifty festivals worldwide, most recently at IRCAM in Paris. He has worked with a diverse range of collaborators, including the BBC Concert Orchestra, Bellowhead and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, the Kreutzer Quartet, Icebreaker, Thalia Myers, Mark Simpson, Zubin Kanga, Piano Circus, Ballet Rambert, the Gogmagogs, the New London Children’s Choir and the Tempest Flute Trio.

Under the auspices of Tod Machover (MIT), Nunn, in his role as Hyperbow Researcher at the Royal Academy of Music, wrote two new works incorporating Diana Young’s (MIT) Hyperbow design: Gaia Sketches for solo cello and live electronics (finalist in the New Media category, British Composers Awards 2006); and Fata Morgana for cello, ensemble and live electronics, which featured as part of the concluding Electronica concert series with the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2011. Nunn’s collaborative process between composer and engineer was presented in a research paper alongside Young at the 2006 NIME conference at IRCAM. His recent collaboration, Morphosis with Zubin Kanga, incorporated 3D sensors on the pianist’s hands and was presented at the 2015 ‘Inventing Gestures’ symposium as part of IRCAM’s Manifeste Festival.

As part of his extensive work as an educator, Nunn currently holds the position of Lecturer in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music. His music is published by Cadenza Music and the ABRSM, and features on 21st Century Bow (Royal Academy of Music), Music of the Spheres (Red Sock Records), Gonk (sfz Music) and Prism (NMC).

Thalia Myers (piano)

Thalia Myers is active as pianist, teacher and promoter of new music. She has performed and broadcast as soloist and chamber musician in over thirty countries. Her repertoire and recordings range from music of the eighteenth century to the present; CDs include five albums of contemporary works for solo piano. She has commissioned over a hundred and fifty new works, including the Spectrum anthologies for piano and the Chamber Music Exchange.

Thalia was a pupil of Cyril Smith at the Royal College of Music and later studied with Ilona Kabos and Peter Feuchtwanger. She has given masterclasses around the world and has overseen projects with composition students in the U.K. at the Royal College of Music, The Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music and The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Zubin Kanga (piano)

London-based, Australian pianist Zubin Kanga has performed at many international festivals, including the BBC Proms (UK), Metropolis New Music Festival (Australia), IRCAM’s Manifeste Festival (France) and Borealis Festival (Norway), as well as appearing as soloist with the London Sinfonietta and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Zubin has collaborated with many of the world’s leading composers, including Michael Finnissy, George Benjamin and Thomas Adès, and premiered over 50 new works. He is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nice and IRCAM, Paris, and a Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Sarah Watts (bass clarinet)

Specialist bass clarinettist Sarah Watts studied at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Rotterdam Conservatorium, where she was awarded the Exxon prize. In addition to performing around the world, she teaches bass clarinet at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, and runs courses for clarinet, bass clarinet and Wind Chamber Music. Recently, after completing her PhD, Sarah’s innovative research into bass clarinet multiphonics was published as a book. Sarah is currently an artist with Vandoren UK, Uebel Clarinets International and Silverstein. She plays Uebel Superior clarinets and a Selmer Privilege bass clarinet.

Carla Rees (alto flute, quarter-tone alto flute)

Carla Rees is an innovative low flutes specialist and arranger. She is Artistic Director of rarescale, Director of Tetractys Publishing and has a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London. She teaches the flute at Royal Holloway University and is Programme Leader for music at the Open College of Arts. Carla plays Kingma System flutes, and has had several hundred works written for her to date. She performs as recitalist and chamber musician, writes articles and reviews for several of the world’s flute maga- zines and has recorded for Atopos, Metier, Capstone and rarescale records. She is regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and has performed on incidental music for BBC Radio 4, as well as on short films and feature films. She also works as a professional photographer.

Richard Shaw (piano)

Pianist Richard Shaw’s many broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 include performances with violinists such as James Ehnes, Viviane Hagner, Leonidas Kavakos, So-Ock Kim, Pekka Kuusisto, Vadim Repin, Ittai Shapira and Nikolaj Znaider, cellists Matthew Barley, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Richard Harwood and Li Wei, Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Martin Fröst (clarinet), and singers including Nicole Cabelle, Ailish Tynan, Alice Coote, Ruby Philogene, Jean Rigby, Anna Larsson, Kurt Streit and Matthew Rose. Richard is a staff accompanist at the Royal Academy of Music, London. He is currently writing a biography about the Russian mezzo soprano, Maria Karinskaya. His album Malcolm Arnold: Songs and Arias is published by Novello & Co/Music Sales and his recent CDs for Deux-Elles include music by Gaubert, Birtwistle, Cecilia McDowall and Fauré.

Rosanna Ter-Berg (piccolo)

Rosanna Ter-Berg studied at Trinity College of Music with Anna Noakes, gaining first prize in both the ESO soloist and British Flute Society Competitions. In 2012, Rosanna won the Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists from Making Music, and is currently an artist for the Park Lane Group, The Countess of Munster Recital Scheme, Live Music Now, a Tunnell Trust winner and a recording artist for the ABRSM’s 2014–17 flute syllabus. Rosanna enjoys a varied musical career as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, educator and improviser. She also plays South American music with the group A Oca. She has performed across the UK and Europe in major concert venues and festivals. She enjoys collaborating with composers and blurring boundaries across the arts with dancers, actors and artists.

Arek Adamczyk (bassoon)

Arek Adamczyk studied the bassoon at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw with Bogumil Gadawski and, after winning several competitions in Poland, moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music with Andrea di Flammineis and Martin Gatt. Since his studies, he has been a freelance orchestral bassoonist with several major British and Polish orchestras. As a soloist Arek has performed with a number of orchestras, including Southbank Sinfonia, Zabrzanska Filharmonia, Lodzka Filharmonia and the Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra Amadeus. In 2013, he completed his PhD on British contemporary bassoon music. Arek also holds the position of bassoon professor at the Paderewski Music Academy, Poznań. He plays a #7244 Jubilee Edition Heckel bassoon.

Matthew Schellhorn (piano)

Matthew Schellhorn studied in Man- chester and Cambridge. His teachers included Peter Hill and Yvonne Loriod- Messiaen. He has given recitals in many major venues throughout the UK, including Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room. He has been guest soloist at several international festivals and has performed live on BBC Radio 3 and Radio France. He is a prominent performer of new music and has given numerous world and territorial premieres. Commissions include a collection of studies by Nicola LeFanu and six miniatures by Tim Watts, Michael Zev Gordon, Cecilia McDowall, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Colin Riley and Jeremy Thurlow. In 2012, he gave the world premiere of Ian Wilson’s Flags and Emblems in the Belfast Festival with the Ulster Orchestra. In 2014, Diatribe Records released Matthew Schellhorn's solo disc, Ian Wilson: Stations, the world premiere recording of a new commission by Irish composer Ian Wilson.

Sarah Mason (percussion)

Welsh percussionist Sarah Mason has performed internationally as a soloist in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House, with broadcasts from Classic FM to HTV. As an orchestral musician, she has toured China, Russia and America with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, recorded Howard Shore’s score for The Hobbit, appeared on the BBC proms and was streamed live to cinemas across the UK from the Glyndebourne Opera House. Sarah studied with a full scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music and then went on to gain a Fellowship in Chamber Music at the Royal College of Music, before returning to the Royal Academy of Music as a Fellow in Music Outreach. She has given workshops with Britten Sinfonia, Wigmore Hall, Streetwise Opera and others. Sarah is passionate about performing new music, and has premiered works by Philip Glass, Harrison Birtwistle and Julian Anderson.

Maria Ołdak (violin)

Born in Poland, Maria Ołdak studied at the University of Music in Warsaw and the Royal Academy of Music in London. In addition to winning first prize and two further special awards at the Allegro Vivo Competition in Austria, Maria has also been the recipient of the audience prize at the Friends of the Academy Wigmore Award and the prestigious Młoda Polska scholarship. An accomplished chamber musician, soloist and orchestral player, Maria has performed with artists such as Martha Argerich, Renée Fleming, Pinchas Zukerman, Edgar Meyer and Pekka Kuusisto. Maria has recorded for EMI and Deutsche Grammophon. She has also released three solo albums, including Modern Times with pianist James Baillieu. She is currently the Chairman of the Music Society in Poland, as well as the Artistic Director of the music festival “W oparach dźwięków”.