MARIA MARCHANT

Maria Marchant studied at Trinity College of Music with Alexander Ardakov and Yonty Solomon, where she won numerous awards and prizes. During her final year, she was one of only four musicians in the country to be awarded the BBC Performing Arts Fund Education Award. She graduated with a First Class Honours BMus degree, gaining the Silver Medal for Piano Performance. Last July, Maria completed the MMus in Advanced Piano Performance at the Royal College of Music where she studied with Niel Immelman. During her time at the RCM, Maria won First Prize and Gold Medal in the Hindemith International Competition 2008 in Berlin and was awarded the Hilda Anderson Deane Scholarship. On completion of her Masters, she was selected by the RCM as one of their 2009 ‘Rising Stars’.

Maria has had wide experience as a concerto soloist, working with conductors including Andrew Bernardi, Diego Masson, Andrew Sherwood, Peter Stark and James Whitbourne. Her performances have included Bach’s D minor concerto at Arundel Castle with the Mid-Sussex Youth Orchestra, Finzi’s Eclogue at Shipley Arts Festival 2009 with the Bernardi Chamber Ensemble, the Grieg Concerto at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff with UK Medical Students’ Orchestra, Rachmaninov No. 2 in Berlin and Leipzig with Brighton Youth Orchestra and,with Trinity Symphony Orchestra, the Ravel Concerto for Left Hand at Blackheath Concert Halls and Prokofiev No. 3 at St. John’s Smith Square. As a recitalist, Maria has performed in many prestigious venues including the Cadogan Hall, Purcell Room, Royal Opera House, National Gallery, Fairfield Croydon, St. James’s Piccadilly, Cheltenham Town Hall and the Konzerthaus in Berlin. She has participated in a vast array of music festivals including the 2008 and 2009 Proms Plus Series, Cheltenham Music Festival 2008, RCM’s Elliott Carter, Messiaen and ‘Songs Without Words’ Festivals and Trinity’s New Quays, Schumann and Rzewski Festivals. Maria is also an avid chamber musician and recently collaborated with acclaimed soprano Lesley Garrett CBE, accompanying for the CBBC programme ‘Clash’ which was broadcast in July.

Currently studying with Philip Fowke, Maria has a particular interest in performing works by British composers such as Arnold Bax, Richard Rodney Bennett and York Bowen. She has recently been selected as a performer for the Concordia Foundation and the Tillett Trust Young Artists’ Platform. She has performed in many masterclasses with renowned pianists such as William Aide, Leif Ove Andsnes, Peter Donohoe, Rolf Hind, Noriko Ogawa, Kathryn Stott and Melvyn Tan.

Maria recently performed works by Kenneth Leighton and Kenneth Hesketh at the Park Lane Group Young Artist New Year Series 2010 in the Purcell Room. Future engagements include a performance of Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody at the RAM, a lunchtime recital at St. Martin-in-the-Fields for Concordia Foundation and in September her Wigmore debut as part of the Monday Platform series.

OLGA STEZHKO

Olga Stezhko was born in Minsk, Belarus. She started to play the piano at the age of five and entered the Republican Music College in Minsk a year later. She studied there with the famous Belarusian pianists Oleg Krimer and Evgeny Pukst, graduating with distinction. In 2002 she was awarded one of only a handful of scholarships to study at the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy, where her teachers were Alberto Miodini and the legendary Trio di Trieste. In 2004 she came to the Royal Academy of Music in London on a scholarship, graduating with 1^st Class Honours in 2008. She is currently in the second year of an MMus at the RAM, studying under Ian Fountain, supported by the RAM, Musicians' Benevolent Fund and Martin Musical Scholarship Fund.

Olga has won many international piano competitions the most recent being the Grand Prix at the First European Piano Competition Halina Czerny-Stefanska In Memoriam in Poland. Other awards include 1st Prize at the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition in the USA; 1st Prize the Stefano Marizza Piano Competition in Italy; 1st Prize at the N. Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Paris and 1st Prize the Chopin International Piano Competition for Young Pianists in Poland. Recently she was chosen as one of the three winners of the Tillett Trust Young Artists' Platform scheme and will make her debut in Wigmore Hall as part of The Monday Platform in September 2010. She is the holder of many scholarships and awards, including the prestigious MBF Myra Hess Scholarship and the Philharmonia Orchestra/Martin Musical Fund Scholarship Award.

Olga has participated in various masterclasses with such distinguished musicians as the late Halina Czerny-Stefanska, the late Alexander Satz, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Ingrid Fliter, Lilya Zilberstein, Garrick Ohlsson, Dmitry Bashkirov, Piers Lane and Fou Ts'ong. She made her debut at the age of eight on the stage of the National Opera House in Minsk and a year later her international debut at the Music Academy in Bialostok, Poland. Since then she has given numerous performances at the most important halls in Belarus, including performances with the State Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of the Belarusian National Opera and Ballet Theatre. She has played in Poland, Germany, Russia, Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, the UK and Spain and in October 2007 she made her New York debut at Carnegie Hall. In 2008 and 2009 she participated in Encuentro de Musica y Academia de Santander in Spain and also played solo and chamber concerts at Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria, collaborating with such artists as violinist Peter Cropper (Lindsay Quartet) and cellist Ivan Monighetti. She has broadcasted frequently on Belarus national radio and television.

Olga Stezhko is extremely grateful to Mr Massimo Prelz for his generous and continuous support.

BELINDA WILLIAMS

Belinda Williams was born in London, where she is now based and where she currently studies with Yvonne Minton. Belinda is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, having appeared in Handel’s Athalia at Snape, conducted by Richard Egarr and coached by Michael Chance, and in September she takes up a place on the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music.

Belinda read English at Warwick before completing the ENO’s ‘The Knack’ programme with the help of a Baylis Award. She gained her MMus at Trinity College of Music where she studied with Alison Wells on a TCM scholarship. In recent years, Belinda has had coaching and masterclasses with, amongst others, Montserrat Caballé, Sarah Walker, Tom Muraco, Elaine Kidd, Robert Tear, Ubaldo Fabbri, Meribeth Bunch-Dayme and Michael Chance.

In 2010, Belinda will be singing at LSO St. Luke’s in the new show Inferno for Mahogany Opera, directed by Frederic Wake-Walker, with the Aurora Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon. In March she plays ‘The Sorceress’ in an all-female production of Dido and Aeneas, conducted by Simon Over, with the Southbank Sinfonia. Also this year, she will appear in recital at Handel House with soprano Sarah Moule and harpsichordist Erik Dippenaar. She makes her solo debut with Grange Park Opera this summer singing the role of 'Princess Linette' in Prokofiev's The Love for 3 Oranges, directed by David Fielding and conducted by Leo Hussain. This August she travels to the South of France to take up a place on the Les Azuriales Young Artist Programme, and compete in the finals of the Les Azuriales Young Singers Competition.

In 2009, Belinda sang the roles of ‘Dorabella’ Così fan tutte and ‘L’Enfant’ L’Enfant et les Sortilèges with the Orchestra of St Pauls conducted by Ben Palmer. Her other operatic roles include: ‘Baba the Turk’ The Rake’s Progress (directed by Mike Ashman at Blackheath Halls), 'Giacinta’ La finta semplice, ‘Popova’ The Bear, ‘Cherubino’ Le nozze di Figaro, ‘Sesto’ Giulio Cesare, ‘Mère Jeanne’ Dialogues des Carmélites (TCM, dir. Bill Bankes-Jones), and ‘Hansel’(Opera Minima). She sang in the ensemble for Grange Park Opera 2009 productions of Eliogabalo, Der fliegende Holländer and Norma. She has appeared as a soloist at numerous opera festivals, including Tête à Tête Opera, Grimeborn Opera, Opera de Baugé and the Cheltenham Festival, and as a recitalist at notable venues such as St Martin-in-the-Fields and Handel House. She has sung regularly as an oratorio soloist, notably in the Bach St John Passion, conducted by Richard Egarr at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich.

Belinda is a passionate exponent of new music, having premiered many new works. In 2008, she made her BBC Radio 4 debut singing ‘Mary, Mother of God’ on Good Friday in Sasha Johnson Manning’s Daughters of Jerusalem with words by Carol-Ann Duffy. New operas include: Box Story by Jocelyn Pook with celebrated performance artist Bobby Baker at Warwick Arts Centre, and ‘Lovely Lady’ in Purcell: His Ground by David Knotts at the Royal Opera House Clore Studio.