Dr Chiara Bertoglio
Concert Pianist, Musicologist and Theologian
Dr Chiara Bertoglio is a Concert Pianist, Musicologist, and Theologian. Her degrees include a PhD in Music Performance Practice (Birmingham 2012) and Master’s degrees (Venice, Rome, Nottingham). In 2023 she issued the four-CD recording of the complete Bach-Busoni transcriptions, arrangements, and original works; this is part of her performance-based research on the Italian reception of Bach (four more published CDs, critical editions, monographs and articles, organisation of international conferences in her capacity as the co-founder of JSBach.it, the Italian Bach Society). Her other publications include the award-winning Reforming Music. Music and the Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century (De Gruyter, 2017; It. Ed., Claudiana, 2020), and Musical Scores and the Eternal Present. Theology, Time, and Tolkien (Pickwick, 2021). She is a full professor of piano at the Conservatory of Cuneo and she lectures in the field of music theology at the Theological Universities of Turin, Bologna, and Florence.
Dr Brian Andrew Inglis
Director of Music Programmes at Middlesex University London
Dr Brian Andrew Inglis is Director of Music Programmes at Middlesex University London. A composer and musicologist, he completed postgraduate studies at City University London, with a prizewinning masters’ dissertation on Kaikhosru Sorabji and a PhD in composition and analysis (1999). His interests encompass genre and identity, including the classical music industry, music and spirituality, and 20th/21st-century British classical and popular music. A member of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association’s editorial board and the international network Music, Spirituality and Wellbeing, he has presented his research internationally from Scotland to South Africa. He has published extensively, and his scores are available from Composers Edition and Forton Music, with recordings on the Nonclassical, KAIROS and Sargasso label (including a solo piano album, Living Stones). His edition (with Barry Smith) of Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Letters to Peter Warlock was acclaimed by BBC Music magazine as one of the best classical music books of 2020.
Michael Jones
Pianist, Writer and Historian
Michael Jones is a pianist, writer and historian, and in over 50 years of musical activity has programmed works by over 500 composers. During his teens he made a piano duet transcription of Busoni's Tanzwalzer and at the age of 15 won a scholarship to study piano at what is now the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, graduating in 1974 with prizes for Piano, Advanced Harmony, and Musical Distinction. In 1993 he met the Scottish pianist and composer Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015), and from 1994 until 2018 participated in all of Stevenson's 'Summerschools'. During the very first of these Ronald and Michael gave the world premiere of Michael's 2-piano transcription of the 'Sarabande' from 'Doktor Faust', and in 2018 the first performance of both the 'Sarabande & Cortege' was given in the Cathedral of the Isles Scotland by Michael and Andrew Johnston in Memory of Ronald, who had died three years before.
Prof Ian Pace
Professor of Music, Culture and Society at City, University of London
Ian Pace is a pianist, musicologist and writer. As a pianist he has given well over 300 world premieres, played in 28 countries, recorded over 40 CDs, and worked with many leading contemporary composers. Notable events include two series of the complete works of Michael Finnissy, in 1996 and 2016, and in 2022 a series of the nine symphonies of Beethoven as transcribed by Liszt. He is Professor of Music, Culture and Society and University Advisor – Interdisciplinarity at City, University of London. He has published four books and a wide range of articles; his scholarly work interacts with musicology, history, sociology, politics and education. His areas of expertise include music and modernism, especially in Germany, historical and contemporary performance, music in education and critical musicology. He is also co-founder of City Academics for Academic Freedom and the London Universities’ Council For Academic Freedom, and a trustee of the Society for Music Analysis.
Fred Scott
PhD Research Student at City, University of London
London-born Fred Scott studied at the Royal Academy of Music and after making his debut with Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto has performed widely in the UK, Europe, USA and Australia. His music has been performed in noted UK venues Southbank, Wigmore Hall, Alexandra Palace, Royal Court Theatre, St. John’s Smith Square, Fairfield Halls and Sydney Opera House. Fred has worked in the commercial music sector recording and broadcasting for various media including BBC, ITV and Channel Four. Having been dedicated to music education for over 40 years he is currently conducting PhD research at City, University of London into The Musical, Literary, Philosophical and Spiritual Syncretism of Ferruccio Busoni’s Doktor Faust. Recent work has been published by Routledge, Musikproduction Höflich, SRIA (London) and Soundpractice Music with other materials in preparation.Fred practices Forensic Musicology and is a Cardiff University Bond Solon Certified Expert Witness.
Raymond Shon
PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne
Raymond Shon is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne. His research investigates how the reoccurrence of musical materials among otherwise unrelated compositions in Ferruccio Busoni’s oeuvre can underpin an informed interpretation of the composer's piano music. He has given Melbourne premieres of many Busoni solo piano works, including the Six Elegies (2014), the Six Sonatinas (2018), the Indian Diary and Three Album Leaves (2023). In 2016, Raymond curated the Busoni Sesquicentennial event at the Helsinki Music Centre, which was broadcast on YLE radio. He was a finalist and prize winner at the 2022 Australian National Piano Award and holds a Master of Music from the Sibelius Academy.
Geoff Thomason
Deputy Librarian (Research) at the Royal Northern College of Music
Geoff Thomason recently retired as Deputy Librarian at the RNCM, where his Ph.D. centred on the Manchester career of the violinist Adolph Brodsky. He has held several posts for the International Association of Music Libraries and has acted as editor, and contributed to, its national journal Brio and international journal Fontes Artis Musicae. He was a lead researcher on the AHRC-funded Making music in Manchester during World War 1 project and the subsequent Musical institutions in Paris and Manchester during the First World War. He is currently guest-editing a Manchester-themed issue of Nineteenth-century Music Review. He authored the articles on Adolph Brodsky in Grove Music Online and on Manchester in Die Musik in Geschichte un Gegenwart. Geoff has also worked as a freelance musical journalist, writing reviews and articles for The Guardian and City Life as well as numerous programme notes and CD liner notes.
Natalie Tsaldarakis and Panayotis Archontides
The Ivory Duo Piano Ensemble
Natalie Tsaldarakis (Doctoral Researcher, City) and Panayotis Archontides are the Concert Pianists behind the Ivory Duo Piano Ensemble. They are Convivium Records Artists and Co-Artistic Directors of the PianoPlus International Recital Series. Broadcasts include BBC Radio 3, WQXR (NY, US), Scala Radio, ERA-2, ERA-3, Athens 98.4. They are included in the American Concerto Compendium (2nd ed.) for their recording of Helen Hagan’s piano concerto. This same recording was used in a commemorative documentary released by Yale University. They have been coached by concert pianists Martino Tirimo and Elena Riu. Collaborations with instrumentalists include trumpeter Simon Desbrulais and pianist Nadia Lasserson, and many contemporary composers from the US, Greece, and the UK. Previously Artist Teachers of the American College of Greece and piano professors at the National Conservatory of Greece for a decade, they perform in venues such as Athens Concert Hall, Steinway Hall, Southbank, Fairfield Halls, St John’s Smith Square, St-Martin-in-the-Fields, St-James-Piccadilly.
Christopher White
Head of Vocal Faculty Opera at the Royal Academy of Music
Christopher White is the Head of Vocal Faculty Opera at the Royal Academy of Music. Over the past fifteen years he has worked as repetiteur, coach, assistant conductor and language coach with some of the world’s leading companies including the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Bavarian State Opera, Opernhaus Zürich and Israeli Opera. Festival work includes Bayreuth (2016-17) on the Ring and Parsifal and the Salzburg Festival with Strauss operas (from 2018). From 2016-23 he served as Head of Music at Deutsche Oper Berlin, overseeing musical preparation of numerous operas (including all of Wagner’s) and world premieres. He has worked with renowned opera conductors including Edward Gardner, Jakub Hrůša, Marek Janowski, Vladimir Jurowski, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Donald Runnicles and Franz Welser-Möst. Christopher has a keen musicological interest in the art of transcription, and his recording of his own piano transcription of Mahler's Tenth Symphony is available on the Divine Arts label.
Yipeng Xu
Student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Yipeng Xu started playing the piano aged five, achieving his Grade 8 aged nine. In 2022, he achieved a distinction for his LRSM performance diploma. He currently studies at the Junior Department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Melanie Spanswick. Yipeng has enjoyed success in numerous international competitions, including commendations from the Manhattan International Music Competition and a silver medal at the London Youth Piano Competition; he also attended the Mozarteum University in Salzburg last summer. His repertoire contains a wide range of composers and styles, and he particularly enjoys playing lesser-performed music, including pieces by Kapustin and Busoni, alongside the standard repertoire. Away from his solo work, Yipeng is also a keen chamber musician, composer and organist – he currently holds the organ scholarship at St James’, New Malden.
Chuyu Zhang
PhD Student at Geneva University
Chuyu Zhang is currently working on a research project at the Bern Academy of the Arts, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, and is enrolled for his PhD at Geneva University. His research interests lie in the analysis, history and criticism of twentieth-century neoclassical and modernist music and its aftermath, with a special focus on Austro-German music. His doctoral research, on the Swiss composer Robert Blum (1900-1994), aims to combine a close reading of the scores with an analysis of the historical and aesthetic background against which his music was composed and received. Zhang has a Bachelor from Humboldt University in Berlin and a Master’s from Oxford.