YMF Showcase, 2005
Simon Lane was born in Bromley in 1981 and became a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral at the age of seven. In 1995 he joined Dulwich College in London with a music scholarship, and studied piano with Timothy Barratt, as well as double bass, singing and organ.
He has recently graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where he studied with Mark Ray. In 2002 he received the Marjorie Clementi award for solo performance, and in February 2003 he won the Ryszard Bakst Memorial Prize for the Playing of Chopin at the RNCM, and was also a winner in the EPTA UK Piano Competition. In March 2004 he was awarded second prize in the RNCM Recital Prize, the College’s most prestigious competition.
Simon was awarded an accompaniment scholarship for postgraduate study at the RNCM for 2004/05, during which time he has won the accompanist’s awards for the Alexander Young singing prize and the Bessie Cronshaw Song Cycle competition. Simon receives regular coaching from Julius Drake, and recently represented the RNCM as their nominee in the prestigious Gerald Moore Accompanists’ Prize. Along with Katie Stillman, a violinist and regular duo partner, Simon has been awarded a series of concerts as part of the Tillett Trust Young Artists’ Platform, including a recital at Fairfield Hall in May 2005 and their debut at Wigmore Hall in February 2006.
Last summer he attended the International Piano Festival in Warsaw, on a Scholarship awarded to him as a part of the prize for winning the Ryszard Bakst Memorial Prize. Simon has also performed at the Aberystwyth Musicfest, Ryedale Festival, as well as the Lake District Summer Music Festival. He has taken part in masterclasses given by pianists which include Renna Kellaway, Arnaldo Cohen, Alexander Melnikov, Stephen Hough and Sergei Dorensky as well as studying with Jacob Lateiner at the Mozarteum Sommerakademie in Salzburg, Austria. He has also broadcast on BBC Radio 3 playing piano and violin repertoire.
Simon is very grateful for the support of the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund, from which he was awarded a major award for this year. Simon Lane appears by kind permission of the Principal, RNCM.