In memory of Sir John Manduell, CBE – Founding Principal of RNCM.
First half
Yuxuan Zhao piano
Maurice Ravel | ‘Ondine’ from Gaspard de la nuit |
Frédéric Chopin | Sonata No.3 in B minor, Op.58 |

Yuxuan Zhao was born in ChiOndine, from Gaspard de la nuitna in 2002 and is currently studying for his undergraduate degree at the RNCM with Graham Scott, Head of Keyboard. He has won major prizes in several leading competitions in China and Korea and is now in his second year of an undergraduate degree for which he has been awarded a full ABRSM Scholarship.
Second half
Rebecca Anderson mezzo-soprano
Roderick Barrand piano
Amy Beach | The years at the spring |
John Manduell | Trois chansons de la Renaissance |
Alma Mahler | Fünf Lieder |
Nadia Boulanger | 2 Songs – Chanson, Elégie |
Eric Coates | Bird Songs at Eventide |
Madeleine Dring | It was a Lover and his Lass |

Rebecca Anderson has recently graduated from the RNCM with an MMus. During her time at the College, she has taken principal roles in many of the recent College opera productions, including ‘Flight’, Les Dialogues des Carmélites and ‘The Cunning little Vixen’. Rebecca was winner of the Emmanuel Prize in 2020, was a finalist in the Frederic Cox Prize and was Highly Commended in the English Song Prize. She is also a gifted conductor is working this with Siân Edwards at the Royal Academy of Music as part of the Sorrell Woman’s Conducting Programme and was also part of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Women Conductor’s Initiative in 2017. She is also current President of the RNCM Students Union.

Roderick Barrand has built a reputation in the last forty as one of the most gifted accompanists in the North-West of England, equally at home playing for singers and instrumentalists. Since 1979, he has been a staff pianist at the RNCM, covering a vast range of masterclasses, song competitions, major College Prizes, as well as countless student recitals. He forged particularly close working relationships with the late Barbara Robotham, Caroline Rawshaw and Peter Wilson and their students, and in the School of Strings, the violinist Yossi Zivoni and his students. He has accompanied masterclasses and summer schools throughout the UK and on the continent of Europe. Roderick is also a rehearsal pianist for Sale and Salford Choral Societies.He has also directed from the piano a double bill of Suzanna’s Secret (Wolf-Ferrari) and The Telephone (Menotti) for LDSM.
Performers appear by kind permission of the Principal, RNCM