2021 Leeds International Piano Competition winner among this year’s recruits
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As Autumn arrives and schools across the UK welcome pupils back for another year, ten supremely talented young musicians will be turning (and tuning) up for their first days as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists. Joining the prestigious scheme for the next two years in September are baritone James Atkinson, pianists Alim Beisembayev and Giorgi Gigashvili, mezzo-soprano Niamh O’Sullivan, soprano Johanna Wallroth, collaborative pianist Michael Pandya and the Chaos Quartet. They will be taking their places alongside the likes of soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, violinist Geneva Lewis and accordionist Ryan Corbett, whose two-year stints began in 2022.
Among the new recruits, Alim Beisembayev’s name may already be familiar to some. In September 2021, the Kazakh won both first prize and the audience prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition, and in doing so was praised by The Guardian as ‘a real musical personality’ – he joins 2018 Leeds victor Eric Lu in becoming a BBC New Generation Artist soon after his win. His fellow pianist Giorgi Gigashvili has similarly enjoyed success in competitions, winning prizes in various events across Europe. At home in Georgia, he has also made his name as a songwriter.
As the two above names show, the latest crop of New Generation Artists has again been recruited from far and wide – singers O’Sullivan and Wallroth hail respectively from the Republic of Ireland and Sweden, and the players of the Chaos Quartet represent four different European countries. Brits Atkinson and Pandya keep the home fires burning, meanwhile.
All of them will be heard regularly over the next two years on Radio 3, both in live performance and from the studio, as they add their talents to a scheme that has been showcasing young musicians since 1999. With around six or seven soloists or chamber ensembles recruited each year, 246 musicians in total can now call themselves either former or present BBC Radio New Generation Artists. These include pianists Steven Osborne (1999-2001) and Igor Levit (2011-13), clarinettist Martin Fröst (2003-05), violinist Elena Urio
