NEWBURY SPRING FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES TWO JOINT WINNERS OF
2021 SHEEPDROVE PIANO COMPETITION
After a weekend of closed and open heats on the afternoon of Sunday 19 September, Nikita Lukinov from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Charles Tam from Guildhall School of Music and Drama shared the Kindersley Prize as winners of the 2021 Sheepdrove Piano Competition.
As part of their prize both pianists will share a lunch time recital on 20 September in Newbury Corn Exchange, the final event in the Festival’s 2021 programme.
The competition which this year had an emphasis on the works of Beethoven was judged by a distinguished panel:
Paul Lewis, Mikhail Kazakevich, Gordon Fergus-Thompson, David Whelton, Mark Eynon.
Additional prizes were awarded to Yiyi Su and Giordano Buondonno. Charles Tam also received the Audience Prize.
The Sheepdrove Piano Competition, now in its 12th year, is an important part of the Newbury Spring Festival and is held at the Sheepdrove Eco Centre, Lambourn. The competition is open to piano students from all the major UK conservatories and was founded in 2009 by the Sheepdrove Trust in association with Newbury Spring Festival.
Mark Eynon, Festival Director said
“The Sheepdrove Piano Competition is central to the Newbury Spring Festival’s commitment to support and launch a new generation of young artists. This year’s finalists are all extremely talented and it was the first time the jury decided to award a joint first prize. Congratulations to them all!”
ENDS
20 September 2021
BIOGRAPHIES
Charles Tam
Charles Tam studied with Raymond Young and Gabriel Kwok at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in Piano Performance with Peter Bithell Carole Presland and Ronan O’Hora in present at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a Master degree student.
Charles Tam is an very active and international competitions awarded pianist in Hong Kong recently. He was invited by Hong Kong Art Festival Plus to give an all Rachmaninoff programmed piano recital in February 2018. He performed with HKAPA Academy Orchestra and Belgrade Symphony Orchestra. He was invited by the Vienna Boys Choir to take part in ‘All Beethoven Sonatas’ series with others pianist from Hong Kong and Vienna in Vienna Music Festival in 2016. He has given performances in Malaysia, St. Petersburg, Salzburg, Vienna, Hong Kong, Macau, Shantou, London, Serbia and Netherlands. He has participated in many masterclasses of Aquiles Delle-Vigne, Lea Agmon, Manfred Fock, Christopher Elton, Peter Donohoe, Rebecca Penneys, Arie Vardi and Dang Thai Son. He is also an awardee of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund’s Scholarship in 2019.
He achieved many awards in different competitions. The major awards include the 3rd prize winner of the Betty Drown Memorial Prize in the Piano Concerto class, the 2nd
prize in open class of Asia Macau Piano Opens competition in 2013, the 1st prize winner and best etude award in young artist class of Malaysia UCSI International Piano Festival and Competition 2014, and silver prize in general class of 16th Chopin International Piano Competition in ASIA Japan in 2015, 3rd prize winner of 79th Steinway & Sons International Youth Piano Competition (Hong Kong & Macau Regional Competition). And recently he was the 3rd prize winner of 9th Serbia Isidor Bajic International Piano Memorial Competition, the absolute winner of London Glass-seller Beethoven Piano prize in 2019, 2nd prize and Carola Grindea Audience Prize of BPSE Senior Intercollegiate Piano Competition in 2021.
Nikita Lukinov
A disciple of the Russian Piano School Nikita Lukinov has started his musical education with Svetlana Semenkova, an alumna of Dmitry Bashkirov, at the age of six in Voronezh, Russia. Nikita’s first significant success was a Grand-Prix at the 2010 International Shostakovich Piano Competition for Youth in Moscow. This led to a debut with a symphonic orchestra was at the age of 11. Other achievements include 1st place in the Inter-Russian piano competition for young pianists, Finalist of an International television competition for young musicians “Nutcracker”, 1st place in the Inter-Russian Concerto competition, where he performed a Chopin piano Concerto 1 op.11 with the Voronezh Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 14.
After studying in Russia Nikita won a full scholarship to continue his education at The Purcell School, a specialist music school in Greater London, with Prof. Tatiana Sarkissova, an alumna of Dmitry Bashkirov. In 2017 Nikita won a full scholarship to study at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he is pursued his Bachelor of Music Degree studying with Prof. Petras Geniušas, an alumnus of V. Gornostaeva. Nikita’s performances took place in Wigmore Hall (London), Kings Place (London), Fazioli Hall (Italy), St. Petersburg Music House, Moscow Conservatory, Vaduz Rathaussaal (Liechtenstein). Nikita is a recipient of a personal scholarship from Voronezh’s State government “For outstanding cultural achievements”, from the National Artist of Russia V. Ovchinnikov; scholarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein, Drake Calleja Fund, Robert Turnbull Piano Foundation.
Nikita is one of the musicians at the Talent Unlimited scheme in London. Nikita’s most recent awards include: 2nd place at the Franz Liszt Center International Piano Competition, Spain 2021; Grand-Prix at the International Online Piano Competition “Tokyo Stars”, Japan 2021; Grand-Prix at the online competition “Music and Stars Award”, UK 2021; 2nd place at the Bromsgrove International Musician Competition, UK 2021; 1st place in the Inter-Russian Competition “Music Talents of Russia”, Russia 2020. In 2020 Nikita Lukinov was appointed as “Emissary of the Muses” of San Antonio, State of Texas. In Summer 2021 he was selected to participate in the “Verbier Festival” in Switzerland. From September 2021 Nikita will start pursuing his Master of Music degree at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on a full scholarship from ABRSM.