The Full Score
Radio 3 scheme for brilliant young musicians welcomes 13 new members for 2021
Radio 3 has extended the scheme for those who lost performance opportunities
A record number of musicians have joined the BBC New Generation Artists scheme, with six soloists, a string quartet and a piano trio featured in the line-up. It includes the scheme’s first ‘collaborative pianist’: the Indian-american Kunal Lahiry specialises in accompanying singers in art song, having been involved with soprano Renée Fleming’s inaugural Songstudio, a programme for vocalists and accompanists.
Other artists joining this year’s roster include the British mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston, German baritone Konstantin Krimmel and Spanish violinist María Dueñas (see right for the full list). They join the ranks of musicians such as the Italian pianist Beatrice Rana (see cover feature, p26), Egyptian soprano Fatma Said, winner of the Newcomer and Vocal prizes at this year’s BBC Music Magazine Awards, Dutch violinist Janine Jansen and Scottish percussionist Colin Currie, all of whom are former members of a scheme that was first launched in 1999.
The latest New Generation Artists will all be o ered solo recitals and the chance to perform with the BBC orchestras, as well as performances at the BBC Proms, the Cheltenham and Edinburgh
International festivals and concert halls across the UK. Many of these will be recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and possibly for BBC Music Magazine’s monthly cover CDS.
Usually, each intake of NGAS remain on the scheme for two years, but Radio 3 has extended the scheme for the musicians admitted in the 2018 and 2019 seasons, given the number of performance opportunities they have missed out on because of the Covid-19 pandemic. This will include musicians like mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska (see p97), jazz guitarist Rob Lu and pianist Eric Lu, who joined the scheme in 2019 following his win at the Leeds International Piano Competition.
Also revealed as part of the BBC’S NGA announcement is the news that German pianist Elisabeth Brauss is the winner of the Terence Judd-hallé Award. Presented every two or three years since 1982 in memory of Terence Judd – an enormously gi ed English pianist who tragically died aged just 22 – the award, which includes performances with the Hallé, will from now on go to a pianist on the NGA scheme to help with their career development.