Matilda Lloyd is a young artist of exceptional promise. Her trumpet playing demonstrates a beautiful, lyrical quality and an impressive virtuosity, all alongside a calm and poised presence on the concert stage. A young Briton, Matilda won 1^st prize in the highly prestigious Eric Aubier Trumpet Competition 2017, and makes her international debut this spring with the opera orchestra in Rouen. In the UK, she has already performed with the BBC Philharmonic at the BBC Proms, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Manchester Camerata and at Wigmore Hall.

Matilda gained a First in Music at Cambridge University before going on to a Masters at the Royal Academy in London, where she is now undertaking her final year. She is former Principal Trumpet of both NYO and EUYO, where she performed under conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Gianandrea Noseda, Vasily Petrenko and Edward Gardner.

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New signing Jess Dandy kicked off her summer at the Händel Festspiele Halle with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort, in a performance and recording of Samson (Micah); the recording will be the first of its kind to present Handel’s work in its earliest performed version (London 1743).

Deemed “a name to watch” by The Times, Jess then opens her 2018/19 season by returning to the Oxford Lieder Festival having won the Young Artist Platform award earlier in the year, before heading to Cardiff, where on October 27th she sings in the world première of Charles Villiers Stanford’s previously unheard Mass Via Victrix with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War One.  In December Jess will make her début with the Hallé Orchestra at the Bridgewater Hall in Handel’s Messiah, and the following spring, she embarks on a two-week trip to Australia to perform Bach’s St. John Passion alongside the Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.

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Rising star Nathan Meltzer is increasingly attracting attention across the international music scene. In October, the American violinist was specially selected as the next recipient of the “Ames, Totenberg” Stradivarius – an announcement which created much excitement in international circles and was widely reported in the press – and kicked off his 2018/19 season with an outstanding debut alongside the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France. Here, he performed the Khachaturian Violin Concerto under the direction of Case Scaglione, and their five-performance tour culminated with a concert at the Philharmonie de Paris. As well as numerous performances in and around his home city of New York, Nathan returns to Europe for recitals with German pianist Elisabeth Brauss in London and Heidelberg, and to the Dresden-based Moritzburg Festival next summer. He also returns to South America to perform in Santiago. Currently in his first year at Juilliard, Nathan studies with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin. Nathan also regularly performs under the aegis of the Omega Ensemble, which showcases outstanding artists at the beginning of their careers, and where he has been a member since 2016. ​

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Much in demand at home in Japan, Masato Suzuki regularly conducts major orchestras such as the Japan Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Sendai Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony.  Recently appointed Principal Conductor of Bach Collegium Japan, he directs a number of their subscription concerts each year in Tokyo and is currently in the process of  recording the Bach Harpsichord concerti as soloist and director; a Christmas album has just been released featuring Masato’s arrangements of popular carols interspersed with his performances of organ pieces from Daquin’s Nouveau livre de Noëls.

At the harpsichord, he is currently embarking on a project with Antoine Tamestit comprising the three Viola da Gamba sonatas which they have just recorded for release with Harmonia Mundi next year. They are touring the sonatas in an all Bach programme that also includes the French Suite No. 5 in G major for solo harpsichord and the Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor throughout Europe and Japan.

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At the beginning of the 2018/2019 season, after seeking advice from many trusted colleagues and coaches, Natalie made the change from soprano to mezzo-soprano.  Since then she won the “Prix de la mélodie française” in the recent finals of the Concours International de Chant Lyrique de Vivonne, that took place in October’18 at l’église Saint-Georges à Vivonne, France.  The following month, Natalie reached the finals of the Concours International Bordeaux Médoc Lyrique singing competition held in Bordeaux.

Forthcoming engagements include “Nuit de Noel” with Les Arts Florissants at the Philharmonie de Paris, a Christmas Concert in Moscow with Pratum Integrum Orchestra, “Castor et Pollux” at the Heidelberg Spring Festival, “The Golden Bride” with Opera Fuoco in Sweden and a Pergolesi/Handel programme with Orchestre Regional de Normandie.

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To mark the reopening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall this spring, Nicolas Hodges and Colin Currie gave the UK premiere of Intrada for piano and percussion:  a specially commissioned work by Sir Harrison Birtwistle. This announcement came during an important season for Hodges, in which he also gives three world premiere performances in Germany with Trio Accanto, and revisits Gerald Barry’s Piano Concerto, which he premiered with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Birmingham and Aldeburgh, in 2013.

Hodges’ collaborative relationship with Sir Harrison Birtwistle has been particularly rewarding with the composer recently commenting, “Nic Hodges is becoming like my Peter Pears” during his acceptance speech at the British Composer Awards. Hodges has long been a muse figure for Birtwistle and Intrada for piano and percussion, which received its UK premiere on 19 April, following the world premiere at LOC Washington on 24 March, is the most recent in a long line of commissions written for, and dedicated to, Hodges by the composer.

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