The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with drama and production arts. The school has students from over seventy countries. It was ranked first in both the Guardian’s 2022 League Table for Music and the Complete University Guide's 2023 Arts, Drama and Music league table. It is also ranked the sixth university in the world for performing arts in the 2022 QS World University Rankings.
Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa,, is a New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". On 1 December 1971 she was recognised internationally when she appeared as the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House in London.
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
Anne Sofie von Otter is a Swedish mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and also rock and pop songs.
Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.
John Hardy is an English-born composer who has been commissioned by the Arts Council/National Lottery, the BBC, Welsh National Opera and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, among others. His work includes opera, choral and orchestral pieces, site-specific theatre events and film.
Jill Carnegy, Countess of Northesk is a Trinidadian and British soprano who enjoyed an active career on the operatic stage and in the concert hall in a wide repertoire, and has made many recordings.
Vera Rózsa OBE was a Hungarian singer, voice teacher, and vocal consultant. She lived in the United Kingdom from 1954.
Music Theatre Wales (MTW) is a touring contemporary opera company, based in Cardiff, Wales. MTW performs newly commissioned works, alongside existing pieces from the recent past which are either neglected or have been unseen in the UK. Works are toured across the UK and internationally. Over its 22-year history MTW has performed almost 30 productions and 14 world premieres.
Iain Farrington is a British pianist, organist, composer and arranger. He performs regularly with some of the country's leading singers, instrumentalists and choirs, as well as giving solo recitals.
Gillian Keith is a Canadian/British operatic soprano, originally from Toronto, Canada, and living in London, UK.
Christopher Stephen Varcoe is an English classical bass-baritone singer, appearing internationally in opera and concert, known for Baroque and contemporary music and a notable singer of Lieder.
Ian Partridge is a retired English lyric tenor, whose repertoire ranged from Monteverdi, Bach and Handel, the Elizabethan lute songs, German, French and English songs, through to Schoenberg, Weill and Britten, and on to contemporary works. He formed a renowned vocal-piano duo with his sister Jennifer Partridge, with whom he worked for over 50 years. While concentrating mainly on songs, oratorio and lieder, he also recorded opera, and has an extensive discography. He is now a teacher and adjudicator, and conducts master classes in many countries.
Philip Venables is a British composer known for his operatic and theatrical works with themes of sexuality, violence and politics.
Julian Perkins is a British conductor and keyboard player. Shortlisted for the Gramophone Award in 2021, he is Artistic Director of the Portland Baroque Orchestra in the USA. He lives in London, England and is also Founder Director of the early music ensemble Sounds Baroque and Artistic Director of Cambridge Handel Opera Company.
Joseph Phibbs is an English composer of orchestral, choral and chamber music. He has also composed for theatre, both in the UK and Japan. Since 1998 he has written regularly to commissions for Festivals, for private sponsors, and for the BBC, which has broadcast premieres of his orchestral and chamber works from the Proms and elsewhere. His works have been given premieres in Europe, the United States and the Far East, and he has received prestigious awards, including most recently a British Composer Award, and a Library of Congress Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award. Many of his works have been premiered by leading international musicians, including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Vasily Petrenko, Gianandrea Noseda, and the Belcea Quartet.
This is a summary of the year 2017 in British music.
Julian Philips is a British composer. Philips' works have been performed at major music festivals, including The Proms, Tanglewood, Three Choirs Festival, at the Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre and Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Music Hall and by international artists such as Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw, Sir Thomas Allen, the Vertavo String Quartet, the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra, the BBC orchestras and the Aurora Orchestra.
Lora Dimitrova is a Bulgarian classical pianist, teacher and leader in music education. She lives in the United Kingdom.
