Two Pianos, Eight Hands: Fitkin, Hammond, Stott, Wall

I compose for live performance, for recordings, dance, media and installations. I work with acoustic instruments, electronic instruments and audio recordings. Here is a selection of the type of work I do.

Orchestral – previously Composer-in-Residence with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Composer-in-Residence with London Chamber Orchestra.  Commissions from the Halle, BBC Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony Orch, RSNO, Athens Camerata, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra.

Chamber – collaborations include those with Yo-Yo Ma, The Sacconi Quartet, Kathryn Stott, Nederlands Blazersensemble, Powerplant, Will Gregory, Ensemble Bash, Piano Circus, Simon Haram

Cross-Art – projects include those with Tate St Ives, Minack Theatre, a VR collaboration with Shezad Dawood, the Geography music app for HFC and the tree-planting Birch 2020 project.

Dance – collaborations with Shobana Jeyasingh, Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance, Pacific Northwest Ballet, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Bi-Ma, Sidonie Rochon, Munich Ballet, Portugal National Ballet

Education/Community – includes 3 UK PRS Composer residencies, 9 regional community projects, university seminars, masterclasses and directed workshops in UK, Japan, Italy and Soweto

Performer – directs Fitkin Band 9-piece group and works with harpist Ruth Wall as FitkinWall.

Selected UK – Cello Concerto for Yo-Yo Ma at BBC Proms, Mindset for the Royal Ballet, The Athlon for LCO at Cultural Olympiad, Home for Royal Opera House (with Jasmin Vardimon), Lost for aerial theatre company Ockham’s Razor, Recorder Concerto for Sophie Westbrooke and BBC National Orch of Wales, Twenty-Six Days for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Wing for Royal Aeronautical Society

Selected non-UK – Partially Screaming for Les Percussions Claviers de Lyon, Birch 1871 for orchestra to celebrate 2014 European City of Culture, Umea in Sweden, People for Les Elements in Toulouse, Tracking Yesterday’s England for Calefax, Amsterdam, Circuit for Kathy Stott and Noriko Ogawa and Tokyo Symphony Orch, Huoah for New York City Ballet

Prizes – three BASCA Composer Awards, International Grand Prix Dance Music Award 2000, Royal Philharmonic Society Composer Award 2015

Acclaimed as a ‘pianist of extraordinary gifts‘ (Gramophone) and ‘immense power‘ (The Times), Clare Hammond is recognised for the virtuosity and authority of her performances. In 2016, she won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s ‘Young Artist Award’ in recognition of outstanding achievement and in 2020 she was engaged to perform at the International Piano Series (Southbank Centre). This season she appears with the CBSO (Michael Seal) and BBC NOW, performs at the Aldeburgh and Husum Festivals, and gives live broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, and Danish Radio with violinist Henning Kraggerud.

Performances during the pandemic included recitals for the Wigmore Hall and Aldeburgh Music, a live recital broadcast for BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts from St David’s Cardiff, and broadcast recordings of Moussa and Carwithen with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Geoffrey Paterson) and BBC Concert Orchestra (Gavin Sutherland). During 2020-21, Clare was engaged to perform with the Britten Sinfonia (Ryan Wigglesworth), Sinfonia Varsovia (Jacek Kaspszyk), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Christoph Altstaedt) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra (Dalia Stasevska). In recent seasons, she has performed with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Vasily Petrenko), Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra (Jacek Kaspszyk), and Philharmonia (Jamie Phillips). Clare gave the world premiere of Uncoiling The River by Kenneth Hesketh with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Martyn Brabbins) and released the Complete Keyboard Works of Myslivecek with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Nicholas McGegan) for BIS Records in 2019.

Clare’s discs for BIS have been widely praised with her latest, Variations, receiving extensive critical approval. The disc was commended for its “shimmering pianism and lightly-worn virtuosity” (BBC Music Magazine) and “artistry of the highest order” (Musical Opinion), while Crescendo (Belgium) hailed her as “one of the most exploratory pianistic personalities of our time”. Clare’s discography includes world premiere recordings of over twenty works.

Clare completed a BA at Cambridge University, where she obtained a double first in music, and undertook postgraduate study with Ronan O’Hora at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Kathryn Stott is internationally recognised as one of Britain’s most versatile and imaginative musicians and among today’s most engaging pianists. As well as appearing on major international concert platforms in recitals as a soloist, she is in demand for a wide variety of chamber music alliances, playing with some of the world’s leading instrumentalists. Kathryn has also directed several distinctive concert series and festivals and has developed an extensive and exceptionally varied catalogue of recordings.

Born in Lancashire, she studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal College of Music and was a prize-winner at the Leeds International Piano Competition 1978. Her teachers included Nadia Boulanger, Vlado Perlemuter and Kendall Taylor. In addition to her busy career as a performer, she is a professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and believes passionately in nurturing young musicians to reach their potential in the creative world.

Kathryn has been performing and recording with Yo-Yo Ma for over 30 years and together they regularly tour Europe, the USA, South America and the Far East. In 2020, she curated their album ‘Songs of Comfort and Hope’ as a musical response to the impact of the pandemic. She has developed shared musical interests with an amazing array of performers and has always enjoyed collaborations with other musicians. She is a remarkable exponent of Tango and other Latin dance music, reflected in her collaboration South American musicians on the Grammy Award-winning Sony CD ‘Soul of the Tango’ and its successor ‘Obrigado Brazil’. In the recording studio she has created a large and eclectic body of work including concertos and solo repertoire; of particular note is her recording for Hyperion of the complete solo works by Fauré and the complete Kabalevsky Concertos with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos.

With a wide-ranging repertoire, Kathryn has maintained a keen interest in contemporary music and has had many works written especially for her. In particular, her close musical relationship with the composer Graham Fitkin has led to 7 World premieres. Her output for the BBC over the years has been vast, performing not only in solo recital but also with all the BBC orchestras including 10 ‘Proms’ at the Albert Hall. Her chamber music partners have included Christian Poltéra, Karen Gomyo, Janine Jansen, Yura Lee, Lars Anders Tomter, Henning Kraggerud, Trul Mørk, Tine Thing Helseth, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Maxim Rysanov to name but a few.

Kathryn Stott has been the artistic vision behind several major festivals and concert series. ‘Piano 2000’ and ‘Piano 2003’ ( Bridgewater Hall, Manchester) established her reputation as an astute programmer; and following the earlier ‘Fauré and the French Connection’ she was appointed Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Government. From 2009 – 2014 she was Artistic Director of the Manchester Chamber Concerts Society and was Guest Artistic Director of Incontri in Terra di Siena in 2010 and 2011. Kathryn has curated two concert series for Leeds International Concerts and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. From 2018-2021, Kathryn relished her role as Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Music Festival which involved programming over 100 works each festival, instigating commissions and bringing together 45 musicians from Australia and the international community.

Besides her performing commitments, Kathryn has also been on the Board of the Hallé Orchestra, a position she held for 7 years. Kathy Stott has a daughter, Lucy, and lives in Manchester. A keen walker, she enjoys being out in the countryside and spending time with her working cocker spaniel, Archie.

Scottish harpist and pianist Ruth Wall performs on concert and lever harps, buzzing Renaissance bray harp and Gaelic wire strung harp. She is passionate about new music and performs with groups such as BBC Concert Orchestra, Goldfrapp, Kathryn Tickell, Sacconi Quartet and London Chamber Orchestra. Ruth has performed at venues including Berlin Philharmonic, Eden Project, Sydney Opera House, Spiral Hall Tokyo, Tate Gallery and Glastonbury as well as recording at studios including Air Lyndhurst, Abbey Road and Maida Vale.

She has worked with composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies, Howard Skempton, Gavin Bryars, and Laurence Crane, building up a repertoire of new works for the harp, leading to her first solo album ‘The Uncommon Harp’. Ruth also collaborates with her partner, composer Graham Fitkin as FitkinWall. Their first album ‘Kaplan’ for two synthesizers is based on the fictitious character in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and toured Japan and UK. In 2007 ‘Still Warm’ juxtaposed Ruth’s early harps with new electronics and live visuals, and in 2015 they released and toured their latest album ‘Lost’ for Gaelic wire harp, concert harp and Moog. Working with Graham’s 9 piece band Fitkin, she appeared on stage at the Royal Opera House, for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and on the 2016 albums ‘Vamp’ and ‘Veneer’.

Ruth has worked with Will Gregory and Portishead’s Adrian Utley in a new soundtrack to accompany Carl Dreyer’s classic 1928 film ‘Joan of Arc’. She is also a member of the Will Gregory Moog Ensemble. She recorded and toured worldwide with Goldfrapp on ‘Seventh Tree’ and has recorded with artists including French singer Nolwenn Leroy, saxophonist Simon Haram, bassist Charlie Jones, and trumpeter Noel Langley.

Since 2000 Ruth has performed in galleries including Tate St Ives and Barbara Hepworth Gallery alongside work by artists including Brian Wynter and James Hugonin, as well as collaborating with Alessandra Ausenda on a sound installation involving a giant rotating dress. She toured extensively with the acclaimed aerial theatre company Ockham’s Razor and joined Kneehigh Theatre in 2017 in their production of ‘The Tin Drum’. In 2019 Ruth performed concerts at the Australian Chamber Music Festival curated by Kathryn Stott with Goldner Quartet, Lotte Betts Dean and Chinese pipa player Wu Man. She will tour her new show Harpland with Graham Fitkin and collaborate with singer Rui Fu and band in 2022-3.

Radio and TV appearances include BBC Radio 3 Late Junction Sessions and In Tune, Radio 4 and Jools Holland. She features in ‘Loving Vincent’,  Ben Wheatley’s ‘Sightseers’,  Jocelyn Pook’s Drawing Life and John Lunn’s soundtrack for the BBC series ‘The White Queen’.

Ruth has recorded for EMI, Mercury Music, Sony BMG, GFR, Bedroom Community and Universal.