Anglo-Italian pianist, composer and choral singer Giovanni Lonati will visit Tincleton for the first time this year. The 32-year-old pianist studied with Daniela Ghigino and Sasha Bajcic, attending Conservatorio G. Verdi in Milan and Conservatorio S. Cecilia in Rome, obtaining a scholarship as the best graduate of 2014. The same year he was awarded the Premio Pianistico Regione Lazio. In 2011 he won a scholarship to the Sommerakademie at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Pianist Philip Clouts was born in Cape Town and has loved South African jazz from childhood. He had just finished his studies at Cambridge when he had an epiphany and he decided to concentrate on music, and specifically the South African jazz style that had followed him to London, where he set up the group Zubop. Bassist Ron Phelan studied bass in Dublin before moving to the UK. He has worked with some of the best musicians and performers in the country touring both nationally and internationally in projects ranging from jazz ensembles to large scale theatrical productions.
This former winner of the British International Piano Competition for Contemporary Music and last pupil of Benjamin Britten returns from Japan to visit Tincleton for two candlelight concerts, details to follow.
The 1920s rent party was a hot bed for the development of solo piano styles including blues, stride and boogie-woogie. Hundreds of long-forgotten pianists competed for engagements (and public recognition) at these informal events.