BIOGRAPHY

Isabel, originally from Sheffield, studied piano at the Royal Northern College of Music with Helen Krizos. She was offered a place on the prestigious undergraduate Joint Course, run between the RNCM and the University of Manchester, and graduated with a MusB(hons) degree and GRNCM diploma (Upper division). She continued with her postgraduate studies at the RNCM on the Masters course, and received an MMus degree with Merit in both Performance and Dissertation.

Isabel has a particular interest in contemporary music, and wrote her undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations on Messiaen and Dutilleux respectively. She was awarded second prize in the British Contemporary Piano Competition, where her performance of Messiaen was particularly commended. Whilst a student at the RNCM, she performed in several of the public concerts in the contemporary composer festivals, and received coaching from Sir Peter Maxwell Davis and Magnus Lindberg.

Isabel was awarded a full scholarship by the English Speaking Union to attend the Académie Internationale de Musique Maurice Ravel in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France, where she studied with Jean-François Heisser. She has also taken part in international summer academies in Nice, Courchevel and Toulouse, playing in piano masterclasses with Brigitte Engerer, Michel Béroff, Christopher Elton and Paul Roberts. At the RNCM she played in masterclasses with Shoshana Rudiakov and Alexander Melnikov.

Whilst an undergraduate, Isabel was awarded the RNCM’s Peter Donohoe prize for piano and passed the LRSM with Distinction. She has given recitals in Sheffield, Manchester, Bury and Clitheroe, and performed in venues such as the Bridgewater Hall, the Barbican, and Crucible Theatre (Sheffield). She was a performer in the Manchester Piano Festival 2003, and the Manchester Prokofiev Festival 2003. At the RNCM she performed in various festivals, including those celebrating the music of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Brahms, Messiaen, Schubert and Lindberg.

She has performed piano concertos including Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and Rhapsody on a Theme By Paganini, and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no. 1 with orchestras around the north of England. She accompanied Sir Willard White for broadcast on the BBC1 ‘Heaven and Earth Show’.

Isabel has much chamber music experience, and for several years played regularly in a violin-piano duo, a piano trio and a piano duo. She has participated in masterclasses with Martin Roscoe and Renna Kellaway in the RNCM’s chamber music festivals, and also in classes with Ian Brown and Julius Drake. She won accompaniment prizes in both the RNCM’s John Ireland Song Prize and Woodwind Prize, and reached the finals of the RNCM’s Granada Prize for chamber music, Norman George Violin Scholarship and Piano Duo Prize.

Before entering the college as an undergraduate, Isabel was a member of the Junior RNCM, where she also studied the viola. She was principal violist with the City of Sheffield Youth Orchestra, and toured with them in France, Spain, Italy and Croatia, as well as performing in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.