RCM Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship

Thomas enjoyed critical recognition at the Leeds International Piano Competition 2022 and has won numerous international competitions including 1st prizes at the Pianale International Piano Competition (2017), Kharkiv Assemblies (2018), Lucca Virtuoso e Bel Canto Festival (2018), Theodor Leschetizky Competition (2020), and Intercollegiate Sheepdrove Piano Competition (2022). 

He regularly collaborates with fellow musicians, including stepping in for Nikolai Demidenko alongside Dmitri Alexeev in his transcription of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite for 2 pianos in 2021.   

Past performances include Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Steinway Hall, Leighton House, St James’ Piccadilly, Stoller Hall (Manchester), Leeds Town Hall, Paris Conservatoire, the Lunel-Viel festival near Montpellier, StreingreaberHaus in Bayreuth and Teatro Del Sale and the British Institute in Florence. 

Future engagements in the UK include London’s newest concert venue, Bechstein Hall, and Wigmore Hall. In Europe his 2023 performances include Kammermusiksaal at the Berlin Philharmonie. 

In 2017, whilst still an undergraduate at the Royal College of Music, where he has studied with Professor Vanessa Latarche, Bartlett was a quarter finalist in The Van Cliburn Competition, held in Fort Worth, Texas, attracting a considerable following both live in the hall and online on Medici TV. In 2021 he graduated with a first class bachelors degree, masters degree and an artists diploma from the Royal College of Music, having been also awarded the Queen Mother Rosebowl by Prince Charles. In the 2021/22 season, Bartlett will embark upon a European tour with the LGT Young Soloists, performing Philip Glass’s ‘Tirol’ piano concerto at the Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie culminating in a gala performance for the Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein in London. He will also play recitals at the International Chopin Piano Festival at Duszniki Zdrój, Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, and Alte Oper Frankfurt. In the Spring of 2022 Bartlett will join the Britten-Shostakovich Festival Orchestra on a tour in Russia. Martin James Bartlett will make his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series this season, as well as recitals in Arizona, Missouri, and Washington DC.During the past season, Bartlett was invited to play recitals across the UK, including Wigmore Hall and the Belfast International Arts Festival, as well as internationally, including recitals at the Concertgebouw, Salle Cortot, the Elbphilharmonie, the Wiener Konzerthaus, and Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Gent. Bartlett was also invited to play with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and for his debut with the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In this season Bartlett was also awarded 1st prize at the inaugural Cleveland international Virtualoso competition.Martin records for Warner Classics and has released two albums – Love & Death in 2019 performing BachSchumann, Wagner, Liszt, Granados, Prokofiev and Rhapsody: Rachmaninov & Gershwin 2022.

In June 2018 Arina Lazgiian was announced as the recipient of the Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship for 2018-2020, awarded by the Royal College of Music. This Fellowship, named after the renowned composer and RCM alumnus, supports an exceptional pianist who has been accepted to the RCM Artist Diploma Course. The same year, Arina was selected to go through to the final stages of The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition for the summer of 2019 in Bolzano, Italy. In December 2018, Arina was invited by the Royal College of Music to perform at a large fundraising VIP event, the Soirée d’Or, at the Victoria and Albert museum, Raphael Gallery. In March 2019 Arina performed on France-Musiques’s programme Générations- live in Paris. In July 2019, she was invited to Majorca to perform at the International Piano Festival “Torre de Canyamel” which included the renowned pianist Arkadi Volodos. The same year in July Arina has won the third prize on ‘Flame Concours’ in Paris, France. She has recently recorded Liszt’s Dante sonata which will be the musical basis of a newly-choreographed ballet film, with dancers directed by Margaret Williams.

Between 2010 and 2015, Arina was enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory where she studied under the renowned pianist Vera Gornostayeva. Before this, she studied with Yelena Plyashkevich at the Moscow Gnessin Special Music School between 2005 and 2010. In 2005 Arina was granted an honorary award from the mayor of St Petersburg. She has performed at the Grand Hall of St Petersburg’s Philharmonic Society, the Academic Capella and the Small Hall Glazunov in St Petersburg, the Salle Cortot and the Centre Spirituel et Culturel Russe in Paris.

Her repertoire includes various compositions by Domenico Scarlatti, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikowsky, Dvorak, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Faure, Busoni, Mussorgsky, Rakhmaninov, Medtner, Scryabin and Desyatnikov

During his studying at the Belgrade Academy of Music, he got two prestigious awards: award for the most talented student at the Piano department from the fund Olga Mihajlovic and award for the most promising pianist from the fund Emil Hajek.

Nikola has performed at prestigious festivals in Serbia, United Kingdom, Estonia, Russia, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Macedonia, Czechia, Singapore, Japan and China and venues such as the Wigmore Hall, St.John Smith Square, Steinway Hall in London, Wesley Chapel in Harrogate etc.
He has given masterclasses in Europe and Asia and was the president of the Jury at the Steinway Piano Competition in Changsha(China).

Nikola has recorded for Radio Belgrade and has appeared regularly on the Serbian National Television.
He is the previous recipient of the prestigious Benjamin Britten Piano Fellowship at the Royal College of Music in London, which is supported by the Philip Loubser Foundation. As part of this scholarship, Nikola has recorded the CD for Genuin Record Label in Germany which was released on 6th of March earlier this year.
Nikola is a first classical pianist on a new social media platform called Pindify.
Currently, he resides in Shanghai.

In Spring 2019, Alexander’s first album on Rubicon, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Prokofiev’s Six Pieces from Cinderella, as well as Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Firebird suites, received rave reviews. In Spring 2022 the label will release a second album, featuring Piano Concerto Nos. 1 and 2 by Franz Liszt with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton, coupled with his Piano Sonata in b minor.

The winner of the 2017 International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht, Alexander has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Budapest Radio Orchestra and Korean Symphony Orchestra, as well as the New Jersey, Fort Worth and Montreal symphonies, working with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Giancarlo Guerrero, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Valentin Uryupin and Cristian Măcelaru. In the 17/18 season he closed the Lille Piano(s) Festival with Orchestre de Picardie under Jean-Claude Casadesus.

He has performed at Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Gewandhaus (Leipzig), Kimmel Center (Philadelphia), Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Seoul Arts Center, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center and the NCPA in Beijing, and has been featured in the Nottingham and Oxford international piano series, on BBC Radio 3, France Musique and MDR Klassik.

Chamber music highlights include performances at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove (UK), Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades (France) and La Jolla Summerfest (US) with performers such as the Dover Quartet, violinists Barnabas Kelemen and Aleksey Semenenko, and cellist Michael Petrov.

Alexander first came to international attention in 2011 after winning the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest. From 2014 to 2017 he was represented by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT). Born in London, in 1991, he studied at the Purcell School, the Curtis Institute and the Royal College of Music, completing his Artist Diploma as the “Benjamin Britten Piano Fellow” in 2017 (awarded by the Philip Loubser Foundation). His teachers have included William Fong, Leon Fleisher, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Robert McDonald, Dmitri Alexeev, Ian Jones and Elisso Virsaladze.

An avid ensemble player, Kolesnikov regularly performs in piano duo with Samson Tsoy and collaborates with other musicians such as cellist Narek Akhnazarian, Hermes String Quartet and Calidore String Quartet. In 2019 he performed the complete cycle of Brahms violin and viola sonatas with Lawrence Power. He formed Trio Aventure
with Elina Buksha and Aurelien Pascal.

Kolesnikov records for Hyperion, with repertoire ranging from rarely heard harpsichord pieces by Louis Couperin to Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons. His Chopin Mazurkas album won Diapason d’Or de l’annee, one of world’s most prestigious awards in the area of recording. His 6th album, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, was released in Autumn 2020. He collaborated with legendary Belgian dancer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker on a new choreographic work based on the Goldberg Variations which was premiered in August 2020 at the Wiener Festwochen and is currently touring the world.

In 2019, together with Samson Tsoy, Kolesnikov started Ragged Music Festival at the Ragged School Museum, former “ragged school” of Dr Barnardo in London’s East End. In the same year Kolesnikov was honoured with the Critics’ Circle Young Talent Award 2019 for piano, praised for his “intensely personal interpretations, often daring in their originality” and his “crusading vision”.

As a recording artist, Dinara has received widespread critical acclaim for her interpretations. Among many dazzling reviews, her album Liszt: Études d’exécution transcendante, S. 139, released by the German label GENUIN classics, was selected by BBC Music Magazine as Recording of the Month. Dinara’s debut album Music of Chopin and Liszt was made at the age of 16 with an American label DELOS, and the most recent CD is a part of renowned recording series Chopin. Complete Works on contemporary instruments, released by The Fryderyk Chopin Institute.

In 2021 she released a recording of all nine Prokofiev Sonatas on Piano Classics label which was received with much acclaim.

Dinara’s music education started in the age of five in her native Kharkiv, Ukraine. She graduated with highest honours from Moscow Central Music School, where she studied with Valery Piassetski, and the Moscow State P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she worked with Eliso Virsaladze. Dinara completed her Master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music under the tutelage of Dina Parakhina.