St John's Smith Square Young Artists 2016/17

St John's Smith Square

St John's Smith Square has announced the members of its Young Artists programme for 2016/17, they are pianist Christina McMaster, the Ensemble Mirage (Matthew Scott clarinet, Julia Pusker violin, Ugne Tiskute viola, Tatiana Chernyshova cello, Alexandra Vaduva piano), the Ferio Saxophone Quartet (Huw Wiggin, Ellie McMurray, Jose Banyuls, Shevaughan Beere), the Minerva Piano Trio (Michal Cwizewcz, Richard Birchall, Annie Yim), harpist Oliver Wass and the Palisander recorder quartet (Hannah St Clair Fisher, Lydia Gosnell, Miriam Nerval, Caoimhe de Paor).

The scheme aims to develop the career of emerging artists and the artists are each given three performance dates in St John's Smith Square over the course of the concert season. They are invited to select their repertoire, market the concerts and produce programme notes. Each artist or ensemble will perform one Thursday Lunchtime Concert, one Sunday at St John’s afternoon chamber music concert, and one full length evening recital.

Amongst the projects planned by the artists, Christina McMaster will be commissioning new works by Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Richard Bullen and developing education projects, Oliver Wass (the first harpist to go on the scheme) will be performing his own arrangements of piano works which have never been heard on the harp before, Palisander has chosen to feature a concert for schools, the Minerva Piano Trio will be collaborating with a new generation of composers and initiating cross-cultural partnerships with the worlds of dance and art, the Ferio Saxophone Quartet plans to work with new composers, Ensemble Mirage will be combining core works with lesser known gems utlising the ensemble's flexible line-up