RNCM announces recipients of 2025 Honorary Awards

Courteeners frontman and award-winning singer-songwriter Liam Fray, leading Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium Professor Anna Reid, and acclaimed Chinese Australian cellist Li-Wei Qin are among the exceptional individuals set to be honoured for their contributions to the world of music at the RNCM next month.

Seven special guests will receive Fellowships in recognition of their work as musicians, educators, and creatives at our Congregation for the Conferment of Awards on Thu 11 Dec, alongside 225 graduating students. Composer and leader of the RNCM’s Children’s Opera project since 2009, Kate Pearson is also among those being honoured, as well as long-standing Sting collaborator and recording artist Dominic Miller. 

RNCM Fellows Liam Fray, Xiaogang Ye, and Anna Reid

Renowned singer and conductor Matthew Best, who received his Fellowship at his home earlier this year, will be posthumously remembered for his contribution to the RNCM’s School of Vocal Studies and Opera, in which he was a professor for 10 years, and an extraordinary career that saw him perform nearly 100 operatic roles in over 100 cities worldwide.  

Speaking about the honour, Liam Fray said: ‘I’m incredibly grateful to be receiving this Honorary Fellowship from the RNCM. To be recognised in the city I’m from by a world-famous institute is something I’m extremely proud of. I remember being 18, passing the  RNCM on the 42 bus as it stuttered down Oxford Road, thinking to myself, “How incredible would it be to be one of those students with a future in music ahead of them?”.  

‘I had no idea what was in store for me in the following 20 years, but Manchester has played a significant role in supporting myself and the band. From those early gigs and rehearsals in Night & Day, to multiple Old Trafford Cricket Grounds and Heaton Parks. This city, and the people who make its heart beat, have been pivotal to our journey and it really does feel like I’m receiving this honour on behalf of them. Thank you to all at the RNCM, it really is a privilege.’ 

CEO of Manchester Camerata Bob Riley, an RNCM alumnus, will become an Honorary Member, as will husband and wife Kevin McNeany and Barbara Mothershaw – known respectively for innovations in the education sector and for the redevelopment of major urban spaces such as Salford Enterprise Zone and Salford Quays. 

RNCM Honorary Members Kate Pearson, Bob Riley and the Mellor-Hale Family

Ahead of the ceremony, Bob Riley said: ‘We all know the power of music when it’s performed, and in the many other brilliant ways it supports our society. It’s something Greater Manchester organisations do very well, especially when we do it together. At the heart of it all are individual musicians who work tirelessly throughout their careers, to reach ever higher artistic standards and new ways of doing things. Acknowledging and thanking them for this, and the funders and philanthropists who enable much of it, has never been more important.’ 

Three members of the same family – Nicola Hale, her husband John Mellor, and daughter Ellie Mellor – will also become Honorary Members. Nicola and John’s daughter Lucy Hale, who lived with a neuromuscular disability, achieved both her Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree at the RNCM and had been studying for a PhD with the School of Composition. Her family posthumously established the Lucy Hale Award in her name to honour Lucy’s work as a visionary young composer and mentor, and to champion and support disabled and neurodiverse students at the RNCM. 

Additionally, 10 alumni of the College will be named RNCM Associate Artists in acknowledgement of their personal achievements in the worlds of music and learning. They are: chart-topping drummer with The Lottery Winners Joe Singleton, broadcaster and pianist Keelan Carew, Director of Manchester Proud Chorus and singer Dan McDwyer, award-winning euphonium player and professor David Childs, internationally renowned pianist and educator Victor Lim, leader of Sinfonia Viva and violinist Sophie Rosa, composers Bethan Morgan-Williams and Asteryth Sloane, and exciting young conductors Rita Castro Blanco and Miguel Sepúlveda. 

21 November 2025