Joe Howson is a versatile and award-winning pianist based in London, working in a range of settings including
solo recitals, chamber music, orchestral playing, repetiteurship, pedagogy, dance accompaniment, outreach
work and improvisation. Joe’s broad and adventurous solo repertoire spans from the baroque to the present.
He is particularly interested in the neglected piano repertoire of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,
from neoclassical and jazz-influenced music of the 1920s to post-minimalist and crossover genres of
today.

He completed his MMus studies in 2019 at the Royal College of Music with Danny Driver, where he was
awarded prizes for Lieder and English Song accompaniment, contemporary music, was finalist in the Chappell
Medal competition, and performed concertos with the New Perspectives Ensemble and Wind Orchestra. Prior
to his time at RCM, he was an undergraduate at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where he now works as a staff
pianist for the vocal and wind departments. He has also trained with the BBC Symphony Orchestra ‘Pathways’
Scheme, Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, British Youth Opera, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
NEXT scheme, London Sinfonietta Academy, and the Philharmonia MMSF Instrumental Fellowship.
Recent performance highlights include: with Das Neue Ensemble in Hannover, multiple chamber performances
with Sinfonia Cymru, solo recitals at the Brighton and Lichfield Festivals, and residency as the Robert Turnbull
Piano Fellow at New Music on the Point in Vermont.

He is grateful to have received support from the Craxton Memorial Trust, Philharmonia MMSF, the Countess of
Munster Musical Trust, RCM Mike Rimmer Scholarship, and the Worshipful Company of Musicians.

Olivia Jago is a Welsh violinist currently based in Shropshire. Having graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in 2019, she has since worked with orchestras across the U.K. including the Orchestra of the Swan, London Sinfonietta, Manchester Camerata, Sinfonia Cymru and the English Symphony Orchestra. For the last two years she has been part of the BCMG Next Musician Cohort and is really excited to performing today with her colleagues from the same project. Olivia is currently taught by Zoe Beyers, leader of the BBC Philharmonic.

Beth completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2021, studying with Nicholas Cox, Raphael Schenkel, and Chris Swann, graduating with a Distinction. She enjoys orchestral playing, recently performing with the Halle in their season finale concert performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with Sir Mark Elder. She has also performed this year with the Orchestra of the Light Music Society and Northern Film Orchestra on clarinet and bass clarinet. She is a regular dep in the orchestras at Chetham’s School of Music, last month playing E flat Clarinet in Stravinsky’s the Rite of Spring with conductor Ben Palmer. Beth enjoys contemporary music, and for 2021-2 was a NEXT musician on the side-by-side course with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Through this she has performed all over Birmingham, including at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, CBSO Centre, and Symphony Hall, performing on clarinet, basset clarinet, basset horn, and bass clarinet. Beth has played in composer workshops with Emily Howard and Michael Zev Gordon, leading to Beth playing the concert premiere of Michael Zev Gordon’s Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet in April 2021.

Rosie enjoys a varied musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teacher. She is especially passionate about the integration of music into all communities and enjoys working with organisations such as TiPP (Theatre in Prisons and Probation), SoundUp Arts, The Messengers, Hackney Music Service, Hanson Community Arts and the Benedetti Foundation. In 2016, she began her undergraduate at the Royal Northern College of Music where she studied with Hannah Roberts and Jennifer Langridge. She is currently studying at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Timothy Lowe. 

Rosie is a founder of the Larisa Piano Trio, who are an award-winning chamber group formed in 2016 at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester. Holders of the prestigious St James’s Prize as well as the Christopher Rowland Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year Award, they have had many competitive successes. The trio were invited to play in Wigmore Hall in a masterclass with György Pauk. Rosie has been accepted onto the NEXT scheme with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, with whom she performed in Birmingham Symphony Hall, BSO and the Birmingham Conservatoire.

Highlights of her orchestral experience include being invited to play with The Manchester Camerata as part of their professional experience scheme and playing in Leeds Town Hall as part of Nicola Benedetti’s Four Seasons Tour. She played again with Benedetti in a string orchestra under Leonard Elschenbroich, which was featured on Classic FM. Always eager to combine her love of the arts with her music making, in 2019 Rosie created the film and musical score ‘Lines’. She has recently composed a piece written for solo cello in collaboration with Colin Blundell, which she recently premiered the Belfry Centre for Music and Art in 2020.