After sharing the top prize at the 2006 Busoni Piano Competition age 18, Dinara took up a busy international concert schedule, appearing at many festivals including the “Progetto Martha Argerich” in Lugano, the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Aldeburgh Proms and “La Roque d’Antheron”. She has performed at many of the world's major concert venues, including the Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall in London, Berliner Philharmonie and Konzerthaus, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, New York 92Y, Cleveland Severance Hall, Tokyo Sumida Triphony Hall, Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory and Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. In concerto engagements, Klinton has worked with The Philharmonia, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Svetlanov State Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a recording artist, Dinara has received widespread critical acclaim for her interpretations. Among many dazzling reviews, her album Liszt: Études d'exécution transcendante, S. 139, released by the German label GENUIN classics, was selected by BBC Music Magazine as Recording of the Month. Dinara’s debut album Music of Chopin and Liszt was made at the age of 16 with an American label DELOS. Her third CD is a part of renowned recording series Chopin. Complete Works on contemporary instruments, released by The Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Poland. The latest release with PianoClassic is featuring Prokofiev Complete Sonatas.

Dinara’s music education started at the age of five in her native Kharkiv, Ukraine. She graduated with highest honours from Moscow Central Music School, where she studied with Valery Piassetski, and the Moscow State P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she worked with Eliso Virsaladze. Dinara completed her Master’s degree at the Royal College of Music under the tutelage of Dina Parakhina and became the inaugural recipient of highly prestigious RCM Benjamin Britten fellowship during her Artist Diploma course. After that, Dinara attended masterclasses at the Lake Como Piano Academy and worked with Boris Petrushansky in Imola Piano Academy.

Dinara is Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music and Principal teacher of Piano at the Yehudi Menuhin School.

Ruth Nye was invited to study in New York with Claudio Arrau after the Maestro heard her perform in Melbourne, Australia. A close friendship and musical relationship developed which included accompanying him on countless tours around the world and lasted until his death some thirty years later.

After her work with Arrau she made London her home and a full international performing career followed which included six recitals at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and five recitals at Wigmore Hall. Ruth was also one of two pianists selected by Arrau to play at the Beethoven bicentenary celebrations in Bonn in 1970. Her career took her to all continents except South America and included four performances of Beethoven concerti with Sir Malcolm Sargent and the first performance of Malcolm Williamson's 3rd Piano concerto.

Ruth has taught at The Yehudi Menuhin School since 1991 and was on staff at the Royal College of Music from 2001 until 2016.

In 2007 Ruth was awarded an MBE for her services to music education and in 2008 she was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Music. Her pupils have received The Chappell Medal at both the Royal Academy of Music (where Ruth was formally on staff) and the Royal College of Music, won the concerto competition multiple times at the Royal College of Music, won places in the Junior Tchaikovsky Competition (Japan), and the Bechstein competition (Berlin), been placed in the keyboard finals of the BBC Young Musician of the Year (UK) and three have won solo Wigmore Hall recitals (Jaques Samuel Pianos competition).

"'Ruthie' is regarded as an Arrau disciple, spreading his gospel. But that is only part of the story. She may impart his approach to technique and tone production, musical shaping and thought, but she is also great at observing her students’ innate personalities and keyboard possibilities, developing their individual talents purposefully."

- Piers Lane

Ruth's biography, 'A Life in Music Ruth Nye and the Arrau Heritage' is available on Amazon.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Music-Ruth-Arrau-Heritage/dp/1781485534

Anahit was born into the fourth generation in a family of professional musicians and started musical training from the age of five. Anahit studied at the Tchaikovsky Music School and Yerevan State Conservatoire. After completing her studies in Armenia she had given numerous recitals there.

Anahit graduated from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles under Evgeni Mogilevski and from Royal Academy of Music (Dip RAM) in London under Pascal Nemirovski. She is a recipient of the Diploma D’Onore at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Anahit is a laureate of the International Emmanuel Durlet Paino Competition in Antwerp, Belgium.

Her studies were complemented by master classes from the likes of Paul Badura-Skoda, Michele Campanella, Lazar Berman, Lev Naumov and Stephen Hough. In London she held recitals and chamber music performances at the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Anahit has also performed at the Santori Hall in Tokyo, the Grande Salle du Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles and the Gavot Hall in Paris.

Anahit has made numerous concert appearances with the London Soloists Orchestra and has regular performance engagements with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra. She is the founder of the Fugata Quintet, UK, an ensemble with an unconventional instrumentation inspired by Astor Piazzolla’s original compositions and which plays music of all periods. She has also adjudicated at various international piano competitions, and given masterclasses in Armenia. Anahit’s current engagements include a project with Naxos Records regarding contemporary Armenian piano music.

John Turville has developed a reputation as ‘one of the leading jazz pianists of his generation’ (Ian Mann). After studies at Caius College, Cambridge (where he was a choral scholar) and the Guildhall, he quickly established himself as a performer and composer on the European scene. John has recorded three albums as a leader which have won multiple awards including MOJO’s #3 Jazz Album of the Year, and ‘Best Album’ in the Parliamentary Awards 2011, the 2009 PRS Promoter’s Choice Award. John was also awarded the ‘Best Instrumentalist' prize in the inaugural 2010 London Jazz Awards. More recently, John completed a 20-date Arts Council Tour with his quintet around the UK in 2019, touring his album ‘Head First’. This was the only jazz event featured in The Guardian’s weekly guide, and received four-star reviews in The Guardian, Jazzwise, BBC Music Magazine and regular radio play on Radio 3 and Jazz FM.

John is also an in-demand sideman, regularly touring Europe and Asia. He has recorded over 30 albums with many established jazz and tango artists, including Tim Garland, the Yuri Goloubev Trio, Alan Barnes, the BBC Singers, Thomas Gould, Will Todd, Transtango, the London Tango Orchestra, El Ultimo Tango, the Matt Ridley Quartet and many others.

John has recently performed with a variety of jazz and tango ensembles at Kings Place, Musig im Pflgidach (Muri), Jazz Nod Odra festival (Wroclaw, Poland), the Salisbury and Bath International Festivals, Vamos Festival (Newcastle), Festival Musicos do Mundo (Sines, Portugal), the Katara European Jazz Festival (Doha, Qatar), Southern Soul festival (Montenegro), the Leipzig Tango Festival, and the Tango Para Musicos symposiums in Dresden and Buenos Aires.

John co-runs the E17 jazz collective and jazz festival, as well as conducting and composing for the 13-piece E17 Large Ensemble, his tango quintet ‘Almagro Ensemble’ and the co-led sextet ‘Solstice’, who’s debut album ‘Alimentation’ was released in 2017, also accompanied by a 20-date Arts Council tour. Their second album is due for release in 2021 on the Ubuntu label.

John is an experienced composer for strings, voices, jazz and tango ensembles, and was recently commissioned to write a new work for his tango quintet with the contemporary tango dancer Richard Manuel. John has also been commissioned to arrange a number of crossover works, including Schumann’s Liederkreis and the Debussy Preludes for jazz ensemble, voices and multiple pianos. John is also a passionate educator; in addition to his work at Yehudi Menuhin he also teaches at Birmingham Conservatoire, Royal Holloway, and the Purcell School.

John is a regular coach on masterclasses in Germany (Saarwellingen), a visiting professor at the Concertato Masterclass (Anacapri) and has been on the panel for a number of awards, including the PRS ‘Help Musicians UK’ fund and the Worshipful Company of Musicians finals. John is also the external adjudicator in jazz piano at Trinity Laban.

Nigel Hutchison graduated with a first class honours degree from the University of Glasgow, followed by intensive study with Craig Sheppard at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with help off scholarships from the Scottish International Education Trust and the Sir James Caird Trust. A Fulbright scholarship subsequently enabled him to study with Earl Wild at the Juliard School in New York.

Since his acclaimed Wigmore Hall debut, he has performed throughout Europe, the Far East and the USA and has given concerts in all the major halls in the UK as both soloist and chamber musician as well as broadcasts for the BBC and various radio and television stations in Italy, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland and China. He has performed with the London Mozart Players, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic orchestras amongst others and has recorded Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with the London Symphony Orchestra.

As a chamber musician Nigel has worked with a number of distinguished artists including Leonid Gorokhov, Robert Cohen, Xue Wei, Hu Kun, Grigori Zhislin and Radoslaw Szulc and has been official pianist for the Menuhin International Competition, the Britten International Competition and the All China International Violin Competition.

Born in Japan, Miho Kawashima began her studies with Ruth Nye in London, England in 1996, and in 2002 gained a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School.

Her numerous concerts include performances in Japan, Holland, Turkey, Estonia, France, Belgium, as well as prestigious venues within London, including the Royal Festival Hall, Fairfield Halls, St James’ Palace, St. John Smith's Square, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Steinway Hall. She has taken part in masterclasses with many renowned musicians including John Lill, the Beaux Arts Trio and Sir Colin Davis. In September 2006 she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she continued her studies with Ruth Nye, graduating with an Honours BMus Degree in Performance. In 2013, she completed her Master studies at Universität Mozarteum in the class of Pavel Gililov. Concerts since include concerto performances in London and Germany, and a wide range of solo and chamber music concerts in the UK, Europe and Japan. Miho regularly performs as a violin and piano duo with her sister, Kana Kawashima, a fellow alumni of the Yehudi Menuhin School.

Mariko Brown began her piano studies with Martyn Dyke, at the age of six, with whom she performed regularly including at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, as well as for many outreach community projects. She made her first concerto appearance age nine under Dr.Ruth Gipps, subsequently going on to study at the Guildhall School Junior Department with Professor Joan Havill where she won the prestigious Lutine Prize. This led to concerto appearances at the Barbican Hall and St.Giles Cripplegate as part of the City of London Festival. During this time she also took up composition with Gary Carpenter, receiving a prize for her Oboe Sonata. She was awarded the Principal’s Prize on graduation from the Junior Department and went on to continue her studies at the Senior Department, with both teachers and also Simon Bainbridge, graduating in 2000. Her Piano Sonata, commissioned and performed by Helen Reid, in 2004, was premiered at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

More recently her piece for piano four hands "Travels Through a Mist of Chinese Mountains", written for her duo with Julian Jacobson, has received critical acclaim. The duo, formed in 2011, has established itself as an ensemble of rare distinction, vitality and originality.

A dedicated and sought-after teacher, Mariko taught for many years at Junior Guildhall and currently teaches at the Yehudi Menuhin School.

marikojulianpianoduo.com

Pianist Alexis White studied at The Yehudi Menuhin School with Nikolai Demidenko and Ruth Nye, the Royal Northern College of Music with Renna Kellaway and the Eastman School of Music, USA with Barry Snyder.

The winner of many prestigious prizes and scholarships, most notably first prize in the 7th Noyers International Piano Competition in France, Alexis has given recitals and concerto performances throughout the UK and abroad. In January 2018 she was invited to give a week of masterclasses in China followed by a recital which was broadcast live on Chinese television. She has collaborated with many distinguished artists including Rafal Zambrzycki Payne, Guy Johnston, Jiafeng Chen, the Sacconi and Navarra Quartets and the Galliard Ensemble. Alexis has broadcast for Scottish Radio, Classic FM and Radio Suisse Romane and featured for several years as a Countess of Munster artist.

Alexis has taught at Ampleforth College, Giggleswick School and was previously the Head of Keyboard at Bradfield College, Berkshire and a staff pianist at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

In addition to teaching at YMS, Alexis is currently Head of Keyboard at St Paul’s Girls’ School and is an examiner for the ABRSM.