Four Rising Classical Stars
Posted on: Monday, 9 June 2008, 12:00 CDT
Ian Watt, guitarist Like Karen Geoghegan, Watt was a finalist and runner up in the BBC's Classical Star competition. At 17, he's still a school pupil at Dyce Academy in Aberdeen. His primary inspiration in taking up the guitar was the inimitable sound and technique of Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, though he confesses that it was the eternal influence of the Beatles that drove him to take up the instrument seriously. Ian will be playing extracts from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with the BBC SSO on Friday 20 at the City Hall, where he will share the bill with Karen Geoghegan.
James Grossmith, conductor Grossmith, now 31, studied at Cambridge before moving to Scotland to study with the vastly experienced conductor Martyn Brabbins. Clearly it paid off. James is now chorus director at Scottish Opera, where he has notched up a series of opera performances, including Tamerlano and Seraglio. He is also director of the Glasgow University Chapel Choir and has recently cofounded, with university organist Kevin Bowyer, the choir's own record label, Bute records, whose impressive first disc, Spirits and Souls, is out now.
He is stacking up experience, having conducted the London Sinfonietta and the premiere of Ronald Stevenson's Ben Dorain at this year's Celtic Connections.
He'll also be conducting Ian Watt and Karen Geoghegan in the SSO's Listen Here! mini-fest this month.
Gareth Williams, composer (pictured) An Armagh native, Williams, 30, has just finished his PhD at the RSAMD, and has two operas under his belt, Love in the Blue Corner, written for the academy, which led directly to an invitation from Scottish Opera to write the beautiful and poignant opera, The King's Conjecture, for the Five:15 project early this year.
A distinctive musical voice, with strong melodic qualities, Williams has a song cycle and possibly another opera in the wings, along with an extraordinary commission for 1000 voices, to be sung in the Clyde Tunnel.
Nicola Benedetti, violinist At 21, Benedetti is the real McCoy, a genuine superstar with a GBP1m record contract, a Stradivarius under her chin and the world at her feet. She is also extremely personable, deeply intelligent, flawlessly articulate and wholly without pretension.
She has an insatiable appetite for work. Recently she did a round of performances with the RSNO in Scotland, went directly to the Brit Awards, one of which she collected, then straight to the Young Musician of the Year competition, where she was a juror, then off to Spain for concerto performances with the RSNO, and then, without returning to Scotland, directly to China with a basketful of concertos for a tour with the BBC SSO.
Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.
(c) 2008 Herald, The; Glasgow (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)
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