RNCM Gold Medal

Alice Roberts completed her undergraduate degree on the highly competitive Manchester ‘Joint Course’ in 2019, graduating with first class honours in music from the University of Manchester and an Upper classification as a Graduate of the RNCM (GRNCM), studying harp under Eira Lynn Jones. Whilst a student, Alice was awarded the Procter-Gregg prize at Manchester University in both 2016 and 2018 which is awarded annually to the student with the highest mark for performance. In 2020, she became the first harpist to win the RNCM Gold Medal competition, the highest prize offered for performance at the conservatoire.

lice is passionate about exploring alternative styles on the harp, and in 2018 travelled to Switzerland to study under celebrated jazz harpist Park Stickney. Since then, she has collaborated with many musicians including folk-pop band Good Habits, jazz saxophonist Jasmine Myra and acclaimed jazz vocalist and violinist Alice Zawadski. In 2021, she joined the band of jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall with whom she performs regularly across the UK and internationally at prestigious venues and festivals including We Out Here festival, Love Supreme festival, the Barbican Centre and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. She is a founding member of Manchester-based harp duo Rascallity which explores unusual repertoire for two harps, including jazz, latin, and contemporary styles, often through her own arrangements and compositions.

Henry George Page (b. 1993) is a British musician who works as a composer, singer, accompanist and continuo cellist. He completed a MusB in Music at the University of Manchester and a Masters in Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music studying with Emily Howard and Laura Bowler, where he won the Patricia Cunliffe Composition Prize in 2020, and was the winner of the 2021 RNCM Gold Medal. He has written for various ensembles, including collaborations with the BBC Singers; Devon Philharmonic Orchestra; House of Bedlam; CoMA; Nottingham Youth Orchestra; and Ludlow English Song Festival.

Henry maintains a diverse portfolio in composition, singing, accompaniment, direction and continuo. As a singer, he originated principal roles at the Grimeborn and Tête-à-Tête opera festivals, has participated in world premieres of works by Roxanna Panufnik, Paul Mealor, Ed Nesbit, Judith Bingham and Sir James MacMillan. He has worked as a peripatetic singing teacher and accompanist at The Royal Ballet School’s White Lodge in Richmond and in the latter guise won the RNCM Emmanuel Prize in 2020 with Mezzo-Soprano Rebecca Anderson.

Currently, Henry maintains a role as a Bass Scholar St Olave’s, Hart Street, and tours with L’Offerte Musicale di Venezia. He deputises regularly with KCL Chapel Choir and has worked on recordings for Signum, Delphian and Chandos Records. Future works include an orchestral premiere with Leamington Sinfonia in their 23/24 season, and a song cycle of poems by Langston Hughes.

Born in Switzerland in 1995, Stéphane Bertin started playing percussion at the age of 7 at the Conservatoire du Valais in the class of Raul Esmerode and Didier Métrailler. Surrounded by a strong wind band and brass band culture, he quickly begun to play in different ensembles
and orchestras. Throughout this period, he won several prizes in various solo and chamber music competitions at the national level such as the Swiss Percussion Championships, the Prix Musique contest and the Concours Suisse de Musique pour la Jeunesse.

In 2015, after finishing his amateur percussion studies with distinction and while continuing to play in various ensembles, Stéphane decided to study Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Geneva. In 2020, once his pharmacy degree secured, he accepted a place on the Master in Performance in Percussion programme at the RNCM. There, he could benefit from the tuition of an international panel of acclaimed teachers, such as Kai Strobel, Le Yu, Simone Rebello, Eric Sammut, Ney Rosauro, Victor Mendoza, Ian Wright, Liz Gilliver and Paul Patrick. This allowed him to develop his playing, often recognized as creative, intimate, yet confident and energetic, and to expand his interest for the contemporary repertoire. The same year he graduated, he won the prestigious RNCM Gold Medal.

Stéphane has been a member of the Ensemble de Cuivres Valaisan for 10 years. He has also played in many other high-level bands and orchestras such as the Valaisia Brass Band, Aulos wind band, the Opéra du Rhone Orchestra and has also appeared at the Crans-Montana Classics Festival. This allowed him to perform in prestigious venues such as KKL Luzern and Stravinsky Hall in Montreux. He played under the baton of world class conductors including Sir Mark Elder, Ivan Meylemans, Philip Harper, Martin Winter, Alan Withington, Erik Janssen and Ian Porthouse.

Besides percussion, Stéphane formed himself as a conductor, benefiting from the tuition of Mark Heron, Clark Rundell and Jean-François Bobillier. He is now a freelance musician while also studying for a PhD  in Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital from Lausanne (CHUV, Switzerland).

Sam “FLOWERS” Tannenbaum attended the RNCM as a mature student of composition after a significant career as a pianist and music educator. At the RNCM he received two entrance scholarships, including one from the Radcliffe Trust and he was awarded the 2020 Gold Medal award as well as the 2021 Patricia Cunliffe Prize in Composition. During his time there he received 1-to-1 tuition from Paul Patterson, Adam Gorb, Emily Howard and Rodrigo Constanzo. He received two commissions from the RNCM Sinfonietta and collaborated with Ensemble Recherche before graduating with a distinction at the end of 2021.

Since then Flowers has embraced a portfolio career consisting mostly of composition, improvisation and music education: He provides music for LPM who offer movement classes for people who have Parkinson’s disease; he is the Artist Director of Subito Ensemble who recently did a research project with University of Oxford and The Universität der Künste Berlin; he worked with Bobby McFerrin in Berkeley, California, as a facilitator and researcher at CircleSong School, and continues to work with Bobby’s manager, Linda Goldstein, as a curriculum developer; and Flowers also teaches music privately from his home in Hulme.

Described as a pianist with ‘with great possibilities of nuance and perfect flexibility’ (Revista Arta), South Korean-British pianist Victor Lim is establishing himself as one of the most versatile and creative musicians of his generation. Following his first public appearance in the televised 2012 BBC Young Musician of the Year, Victor has performed throughout the UK and worldwide. Victor is a City Music Foundation Artist, Making Music UK’s Philip and Dorothy Green Young Artist and the winner of the 2021 RNCM Gold Medal.

In addition to his active performing career, Victor is the Head of Keyboard Studies at Rossall School and works closely with Olympias Music Foundation and Fingertips ASBL. Victor is also the Associate Artist of International Young Musicians Academy and a Leverhulme Fellow of Pro Corda.

Victor studied at Wells Cathedral School, Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Academy of Music and Norwegian Academy of Music where his teachers have included John Byrne, Richard Ormrod, Graham Scott, Jeremy Young, Murray Mclachlan and Kathryn Scott.