Alumni updates
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Our alumni are making their mark in many fields including stage and screen, delivering leading roles and standout performances in major productions, and earning international acclaim for their artistry.
Awards and appointments
At the 2026 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, soprano Louise Alder won the RPS Singer Award and John Wilson won the RPS Conductor Award. Alumnus and composition professor Mark-Anthony Turnage won the RPS Large-Scale Composition Award for his opera Festen. Composer Richard Causton was nominated in the Chamber-Scale Composition category, countertenor Hugh Cutting was nominated for Young Artist, and pianist Nicholas McCarthy was nominated in the Instrumentalist category.
Multi-instrumentalist and arranger Laura Ayoub has been named in Forbes Middle East’s 30 Under 30 2025. Laura is one half of the Ayoub Sisters, who have garnered over ten million streams on Spotify.
Henrietta Cooke has been appointed Principal Cor Anglais with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
Pianist and founder of the SongEasel festival, Jocelyn Freeman, has received the ‘Most Inspiring Collaborative Pianist & Song Curator’ award from SME News.
Jolene Kho has been awarded support from PRS Foundation and Amazon MGM Studios Prelude, contributing to the mixing, mastering, promotion and manufacturing of a new album for tabletop RPGs and sync licensing. Jolene was recently .
Tenor Simon Mascarenhas Carter has been accepted into the Young Artist Programme at the Vienna State Opera.
Composer Mina Salib has been selected as the winner of the Culture, Creativity and Sport Award in Egypt.
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Pianist GabrielÄ— Sutkute recently won the keyboard section of the Royal Over-Seas League competition.
Clarinettist and composer Michael Whight has won an Emmy for his score on the documentary Secret Lives of Orangutans, produced by Silverback Films, which also won three Daytime Emmy Awards. He has since composed soundtracks for the upcoming Disney film Secrets of the Bees.
Yuanfan Yang has won first prize in the James Mottram International Piano Competition, performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto no 1.
Performances, premieres and recordings
The Piatti Quartet, featuring HÂþ» alumni Jessie Ann Richardson and Michael Trainor, has released a new album, , including world-premiere recordings by Ina Boyle and works by alumni composers Arnold, Howells, Vaughan Williams and Tippett.
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Vusala Babayeva has released her debut album on piano: a landmark recording, being the first piano album entirely dedicated to the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli.
Sam Cave performed a solo recital at Wigmore Hall in celebration of the 80th birthday of Michael Finnissy, who is an alumnus and teacher at the HÂþ». Sam is also working on a project to record the works of Michael Finnissy, released on First Hand Records in March.
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The Molière ensemble, featuring two alumni, Satoko Doi-Luck (harpsichord) and Flavia Hirte (flute), makes its debut at Wigmore Hall in April.
Organist Alexander Ffinch’s new album, , was released in January 2026, featuring a collection of diverse pieces arranged and composed by him.
Recent commissions by composer Edmund Jolliffe have been performed at Cadogan Hall by the Pink Singers and the Ora Singers. Edmund has recently won first and second prizes in the Orpheus Academy Competition in Austin, Texas, and has also composed music for many popular shows.
Music by composers Anna Meredith and Alex Paxton was performed by the Riot Ensemble in January, at Milton Court.
The Morassi Quartet (Natasha Humphries, Katie Mazur, Iza Stefanska and Toby Warr) recently performed at the Great Hall of Barts North Wing, performing arrangements of tracks by Skepta, Dave, Tinie Tempah and Tinchy Stryder.
OndÅ™ej Soukup will be conducting the Prague Philharmonia at the prestigious Prague Spring Festival on 18 May. He has also recently been working on Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Czech National Opera.
Alumna and violin professor Esther Yoo’s new album was recently released on Deutsche Grammophon, with a new chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Adagietto (arr Iain Farrington) launched as a single and music video, attracting widespread attention on YouTube.
Publications and playlists
Alumnus and piano professor Martin James Bartlett was recently made the cover star of Spotify’s new Classical Playlist.
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Composer Alison Mathews has published , a fundraising piano collection, including music created by Palestinian musicians, with the support of The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, Palestine. All proceeds from the book sales go to PalMusicUK and Musicians Without Borders.
Viola da gamba player Sarah Small completed a ten-week, self-supported cycling concert tour around the UK titled , cycling 4500km between venues across 31 locations.
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Send your updates for the summer 2026 print edition of Upbeat to news@rcm.ac.uk by Friday 1 May.
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