Biography

Hearing her mother teach piano, Cordelia wanted to learn to play too, and began lessons at home as soon as she could climb onto the piano stool. She gave her first public piano recital to celebrate her eighth birthday. Since becoming the Piano Winner of BBC Young Musician 2006, she has given recital and concerto performances throughout Great Britain, France, Italy, and the Gulf States, continuing to build a career as ‘one of the outstanding pianists of her generation’. She always likes to introduce the music to her audience.

Performance highlights for Cordelia have included a Wigmore Hall debut in 2006, as well as concerto appearances with orchestras including the City of London Sinfonia and The Northern Sinfonia (first with conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier and subsequently with Thomas Zehetmair). In 2006 she made her first foreign tour in the Gulf States, with concerts and workshops in Oman, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Next season includes debut recitals at the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre in London.

Cordelia is a passionate chamber musician – she held an Instrumental Award for Chamber Music throughout her time at Cambridge and is now enjoying getting to know the piano quartet repertoire and the songs of Schumann and Barber. In May 2008 she appeared with the Endellion String Quartet to play Brahms’ Piano Quintet and has since performed with the Fitzwilliam String Quartet and members of the London Mozart Players. She is also interested in working with contemporary composers and has commissioned three new piano pieces by the Australian composer Wendy Hiscocks. The 2001 world premiere of the third piece, Tarantella, was recorded by Naim Audio and released on CD, along with her performances of Bach and Debussy at the same concert. She recently commissioned Oxford composer Hugh Brunt to write for her – this resulted in his ‘Triptych for Piano’, premiered live on the BBC.

Alongside this dynamic performing career, Cordelia is in the process of setting up ‘Café de Concert UK’, which aims to present classical music to a larger audience by creating a relaxed atmosphere in an intimate setting. Schubert’s informal musical and artistic gatherings (Schubertiades) are the inspiration for this series of events, which will launch in London bars, cafés and restaurants this autumn.

Cordelia spent seven years at Chethams School of Music in Manchester, studying with Bernard Roberts. She went on to read Theology at Clare College, Cambridge, while also having piano lessons with Hamish Milne in London. She graduated with a First last summer and now studies as a postgraduate with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is very grateful to have received an award from the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund, to assist her in her studies, and is also supported by the Musicians Benevolent Fund, the City of London Corporation and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.