PROGRAMME
Dvorak -Silent Woods
Dvorak - Rondo
Franck - Cello and Piano Sonata
Ben Tarlton
Born in 1995 in Wales, Ben studied with Sharon McKinley and Alexander Baillie before attending the Yehudi Menuhin School in 2011 to study with Thomas Carroll. In 2014, he received a scholarship to The Guildhall School of Music and Drama to study with Louise Hopkins. As of September 2018, he has been continuing his studies with Louise as a Postgraduate Student, kindly supported by The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Help Musicians UK and The Countess of Munster Trust. He was recently awarded the 2019 Suggia Gift by Help Musicians UK, The David Goldman Award from The Worshipful Company of Musicians and was the recipient of the 2019 John Fussell Award.
In May of 2016 Ben was selected as a Fellow to participate in the Piatigorsky cello festival in Los Angeles and in April 2017, he participated in the masterclasses at IMS Prussia Cove, attending Open Chamber Music the following September. He was invited as a soloist to perform with the Youth Classics Orchestra for their gala concert at Zurich’s Hochschule Der Künste in the autumn of 2017. After being selected as their Young Artist, he gave a recital at The 2018 Cowbridge Music Festival. Ben was recently chosen to be a 2019 Concordia Foundation Artist and a 2019/20 Park Lane Group Artist.
Whilst at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Ben has performed in numerous solo and chamber music concerts in Milton Court and The Barbican Hall. He has also performed on three occasions in a BBC ‘Total Immersion’ broadcast as part of The New Music Ensemble. In November 2016, he was one of two soloists to play for The LSO’s Donatella Flick conducting competition semi-finalists, playing Schumann’s cello concerto with The Guildhall Symphony Orchestra. Ben is Artistic Director of The Llantwit Major Chamber Music Festival.
Stephen Gutman
British pianist Stephen Gutman has performed in the Royal Festival Hall, the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Weill Hall in New York, Ueno Bunka Keikan in Tokyo, and throughout Europe. After graduating from the Royal College of Music in London, he was awarded first prizes in the Brant Competition and the British Contemporary Piano Competition. He has performed as soloist with the Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, and in various ensembles including the Verbier Festival Ensemble. Passionately committed to the music of our time, Stephen has encouraged new work in a series of projects which have placed large-scale commissioning in the context of significant but possibly neglected repertoire. Some of the many composers who have written pieces for him include Julian Anderson, Tansy Davies, Michael Finnissy and Colin Matthews.
Stephen's enthusiasm for French music including the French Baroque led to his recording of the complete keyboard works of Rameau played on the modern piano for Toccata. There have been enthusiastic reviews; the final CD was chosen as CD of the month by MusicWeb International and received 5 stars in BBC Music Magazine. Other recordings are available on NMC and Avid Records, and his performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Deutsche Rundfunk and France Musique. Stephen has given masterclasses in the UK and internationally. He has led courses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Northern College and Dartington Summer School, and regularly gives a class on French piano repertoire at Benslow Music. His contribution to a new book on the music of Simon Holt, a chapter on the piano music, was published in 2017.
