MUSIC ADJUDICATORS 2024
Vocal Adjudicator 2023 & 2024
Yvette Bonner | ARAM, voice professor - Royal Academy of Music Junior department and Royal Ballet school
International operatic soprano, oratorio soloist, concert recitalist and singing teacher.
YVETTE GRADUATED FROM THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC, DipRAM AND WAS AWARDED AN ARAM IN 2003.
As a student at the Royal Academy of Music Yvette won both the prestigious Blyth–Buesst Operatic Prize and The Clifton Prize for best final recital. She was also the inaugural winner of the Emmy Destinn Award for Young Singers in Czech Opera and Song and is now an Ambassador for the Emmy Destinn Foundation, adjudicating the competition, giving public masterclasses and private vocal consultancy.
As a trained dancer, Yvette particularly distinguished herself in productions requiring physical interpretation. Her career has taken her to many major opera houses and festivals throughout Europe, performing with opera companies including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, La Monnaie, Aix-en-Provence and Houston Grand Opera. Festivals include Garsington Opera, Grange Park Opera and Buxton Opera Festival.
Excelling in the field of contemporary opera, Yvette created the roles of Alice in Knaifel's Alice in Wonderland and more recently Sarah in Michel Van der Aa's acclaimed production of ’After Life’ both for the Dutch National Opera.
A renowned concert performer and recitalist she has performed at the Royal Albert Hall in the BBC Proms and with orchestras including the RPO, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, CBSO, ECO, Scottish Opera Orchestra and at the Wigmore Hall with the Orchestra of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Yvette has appeared on TV and radio both in the UK and abroad and has featured on several recordings. She received a Grammy Award nomination for the role of Esmeralda in The Bartered Bride for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Yvette is a member of the vocal faculty at the Junior Royal Academy of Music teaching singing. She has over ten years experience teaching students in her private studio and also is a singing teacher for the Royal Ballet School.
Having enjoyed an international career both on the operatic stage and the concert platform, she commands an vast knowledge of singing repertoire, and draws from this experience to teach singing technique, performance and audition skills, acting through song, use of languages, movement and ‘singer fitness’.
Yvette was recently invited to give a vocal Masterclass for the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire of Music and at present works as a vocal coach to the North London Chorus - alongside ENO’s Murray Hipkin.
Violin Adjudicator 2023 & 2024
Juliet Hughes-Rees | Violin Teacher - Royal College of Music
Juliet Hughes-Rees started playing the violin at the age of seven. After only four years she was awarded a government scholarship to study at the Purcell School. From 1991 she became a pupil of the internationally renowned teacher Itzhak Rashkovsky, and won a place to continue her studies with him at the Royal College of Music. Whilst there she was awarded several prizes, most notably the Woltmann Prize (for her outstanding contribution to the orchestral programme at the College), the Fred Brough Orchestral Leadership Prize and the Doris Gould Memorial Award. A Senior Exhibition enabled her to continue her studies as a post graduate during which time she performed many recitals and led all the college orchestras.
Juliet now follows a career combining freelance performing and teaching. She is principal second violin of the London Orchestra de Camera and performs with many other chamber orchestras in the UK.
Her complete commitment to teaching is founded in the training she received herself. Having been Head of Strings at the Latymer School and coach to the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain, Juliet now teaches at the Royal College of Music Junior department, St Paul’s Girls School and the Godolphin and Latymer School. She has become a highly sought after private teacher with many of her students achieving scholarships to Senior Conservatoires both in Great Britain and abroad.
Piano Adjudicator 2024
Yekaterina Lebedeva , Piano Professor - Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance - Royal College of Music Junior Department
Yekaterina made her performance debut in an extensive national concert series in her native Russia. In 1988 she entered the Kiev State Conservatoire in the Ukraine. There she became in constant demand as a recitalist, performing solo and chamber concerts and appearing at major festivals in both the Ukraine and Russia. She graduated from the Conservatoire with Distinction in 1993.
Yekaterina moved to London to establish a European base from which to develop her solo career further. In March 1998 she made a debut in the Purcell Room, invited to play as part of the SBC Young Musician’s Platform “FRESH”. Since then she has appeared regularly at the South Bank Centre and abroad.
Highlights of past seasons included Schnittke’s concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (Cairo Symphony Orchestra), sell-out return performances in the Purcell Room (South Bank Centre), Stravinsky’s Concert for Piano and Winds at the Athens Megaron (Orchestra of Colours, Athens). Her performing career has also taken her to France, Austria, Russia, Greece, Sicily, Turkey, Dubai and Jordan where she performed under the Patronage of HRH Prince Ali Ben Al Hussein. She took part in the International Forum on music performance and pedagogy in India resulting in the recital at the most prestigious hall of New Delhi – Teen Murti Bhavan in the former residence of India ex-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Yekaterina was the Artistic Director of Young Virtuosi Festival in France for 5 years. Yekaterina is the founder and Director of “Musical Odyssey Masterclasses”: www.musical-odyssey.com.
Yekaterina is a professor of piano at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and is teaching piano at the Royal College of Music, Junior Department as well as at the City Lit Institute in London where she was the head of piano for ten years. Her students have won many international prizes including, 1st prize in the Concours International de Piano Lalla Meryem in Morocco, 2nd prize in the Young Pianist of the North International piano competition in UK, 1st prize in the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe piano competition, 2nd prize in the Scriabin International piano competition in Paris, 2 prize in Piano Talents International piano Competition in Milan, Valletta International Piano Competition and others. Her students regularly perform at Wigmore Hall, broadcast on BBC radio 3 and 2 of her students were Lang Lang award winners and have played in the Royal Festival Hall at the “Lang Lang Inspires” concert and followed up concerts in the Purcell Room and the Queen Elisabeth Hall concert.
Piano Adjudicator 2023
Rustam Khanmurzin
Rustam Khanmurzin is a Young Artist of The Musicians’ Company and the Oxford Lieder Festival, a former Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellow at Royal College of Music. Rustam appeared in a number of festivals with solo, chamber and concerto programmes all across Eurasia, including Festival Auvers-sur-Oise and Rheingau Musik, hosted by such venues as Queen Elizabeth Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Tate Modern, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Moscow International Performing Arts Centre and Daegu Concert House.
His awards include 1st Prize at RCM Concerto Competition 2019 (London), 3rd Prize at Clamo International Piano Competition (Spain) and 2nd Prize at Asia-Pacific Chopin Piano Competition (South Korea). In 2015 he was awarded PianoForum Magazine Award for the interpretation of the 2nd Piano Concerto by F. Chopin at “Virtuoso-2015” Festival in the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory. In 2013 the Melodiya Lable launched Anthology of Piano Music by Russian and Soviet Composers with Rustam’s recordings of pieces by Tchaikovsky, as well as Rachmaninoff: Transcriptions for Flute and Piano was released in 2020.
Awards
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1st Prize: Medal and Scholarship for the next grade’s exam (by Miele Canto)
2nd Prize: Medal and Certificate
3rd Prize: Medal and Certificate
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1st Prize: Cash Prize of £200
2nd Prize: Medal and Certificate
3rd Prize: Medal and Certificate
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1st Prize: Ages 15 – 18: £150
1st Prize: Ages 11 – 14: £100
1st Prize: Ages 7 – 10: £50
1st Prize: Ages 6 and under: £25
2nd Prize: Medal and Certificate
3rd Prize: Medal and Certificate
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All participants will receive a ‘Certificate of Participation’ and a report sheet from the Adjudicator with their marks.