The leading collaborative pianist has worked with innumerable great artists and covered vast swathes of repertoire. His complete Fauré songs on disc has been much praised: ‘Martineau’s understanding of Fauré’s piano-writing, in which less means more, and virtuosity is avoided in favour of nuance, remains impeccable’, wrote Gramophone of Volume 2, while for The Observer he has been ‘ever an authoritative, agile and responsive pianist’.

Stephen Walker

Stephen Walker is currently studying at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance under the tutelage of Dr Robert Alderson. He graduated from TU Dublin Conservatoire with First Class Honours and received the Gold Medal for Academic Excellence. As a lover of both opera and song, he sings in Ireland and the UK regularly, including two seasons at Wexford Festival Opera and multiple projects with the Philharmonia Chorus. He is an alumnus of the Glyndebourne Academy, through which he has performed as part of the Glyndebourne Chorus. One of his most interesting projects to date was working with the Romantic National Song Network singing a selection of songs and ballads from the British Isles in Glasgow in 2019. Stephen Walker is a featured artist on the network’s website. He intends to continue forging his professional path in London and perform as much as possible throughout the UK.Pietro Lacopini 

Italian pianist Pietro Lacopini was born in Florence in 2002 and started to play the piano at the age of 10. He moved to London in 2020 to study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he is currently completing his postgraduate studies in piano performance with Can Çakmur and Martino Tirimo. He is a very active accompanist, with a special interest in working with singers. With his duo partner Dominic Felts he attended the Oxford Song Festival Mastercourses in October 2023, as well as masterclasses with Roger Vignoles and Roderick Williams. Achievements this year includes First Prizes in various Trinity Laban competitions (Alfred Kitchin Piano competition and both English and German song competition as an accompanist). Pietro Lacopini has also been recently awarded the Founders Prize for Piano Accompaniment and the Alan J Kirby Conducting Prize for choral conducting.

Maryam Wocial

British soprano Maryam Wocial is a postgraduate in vocal performance at the Royal College of Music, where she studies with Dinah Harris and Caroline Dowdle. She is generously supported by the Poppy Holden Scholarship, the Cuthbert Smith Scholarship, the H R Taylor Trust, and The Countess of Munster Trust. She is a prize-winning solo recitalist and performed a programme of French song in the Holywell Music Room after winning the Mendl-Schrama competition in 2022. She later won the 2023 Oxford and Cambridge Club music prize and performed recitals as their musician in residence for 2023/24. This October, she was selected as one of five young musicians to perform in the New Wave Lunchtime Concert Series at the 2024 Bloomsbury Festival, presenting a programme of English and French song with collaborative pianist Archie Bonham. She has also given several recitals with chamber instrumental groups, including two at Handel House with The English Concert this season. 

Ayane Nakajima 

Japanese-American pianist Ayane Nakajima has distinguished herself as a celebrated prize-winner in numerous international competitions, including Pianale, Young Texas Artists, International Keyboard Odyssiad, and YoungArts. As a song pianist she has been awarded the pianist prize at both the 2024 Brooks van der Pump English Song Competition at the Royal College of Music and the 2024 AESS Patricia Routledge National English Song Competition. Her recent performances span prestigious venues across the United States and Europe, such as Steinway Hall in London and New York, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and the New World Center. She looks forward to having her recital debut in Germany in the upcoming season. She is currently pursuing her Master's degree at the Royal College of Music with Danny Driver, where she is a Big Give Michael Whittaker Scholar. She received her Bachelor of Music from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, Texas, under Dr Jon Kimura Parker. 

Georgie Malcolm

Soprano Georgie Malcolm studies with Yvonne Kenny on the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, having completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Northern College of Music. Her studies are generously supported by the Girdlers’ Company, the Kathleen Trust and the Richard Stapley Educational Trust. Her operatic appearances include the title role in Handel’s Alcina at the Guildhall, La Contessa in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the RNCM, Venus in Blow’s Venus and Adonis in a touring production in Italy with L’offerta musicale di Venezia. She performs frequently across the UK as an oratorio soloist; highlights include Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall with the Really Big Chorus and Haydn’s Harmoniemesse with the BBC Philharmonic at the Bridgewater Hall, later broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Georgie received second prize at the National Mozart Singing Competition 2022, also winning their Schubert prize, was a Leeds Lieder Young Artist 2023, and was member of the Wigmore Hall’s French Song Exchange 2023. 

Paul St-Georges

Paul St-Georges is currently pursuing the Guildhall Artist Master’s in Piano Accompaniment (PACC) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, studying under Dr Bretton Brown and Carole Presland. This year, he made a bold career change from mathematics and statistics to dedicate himself full-time to music. His musical journey began in Canada, training with pianist and renowned choir conductor Philippe Ostiguy and singing for 12 years with Les Petits Chanteurs de Laval, performing worldwide. Paul’s early accolades include being a semi-finalist at the Canada National Music Competition and multiple wins at the Vincent-d'Indy Conservatoire and the University of Quebec in Montreal. He further developed his skills at Morley College with Kate Ryder, delving into chamber music and vocal accompaniment. He has performed extensively across London, as well as internationally at festivals like Alpenkammermusik in Austria and PLAYWIP in the Czech Republic. 

Aksel Rykkvin 

Aksel Rykkvin is a Norwegian baritone studying with Mark Wildman at the Royal Academy of Music with a full ABRSM scholarship. He won Most Promising Young Singer at the Somerset Song Prize, Second Prize and the Song Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers and Third Prize in the Joan Chissell/Rex Stephens Schumann Lieder Prize. Aksel Rykkvin was a ‘Leeds Lieder Young Artist’ in 2024 and is a Heidelberg Lied Academy scholar in 2024/25. Aksel Rykkvin has performed as a baritone soloist at festivals, concerts and operas in Norway, Sweden, UK, Austria and Germany. At Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber’s Lied festival in 2023, Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised his ‘voice as beautiful as blood and milk' and Deutschlandfunk radio commended his 'extremely clear diction'. He had an international career as the 'world's premier boy soprano' (Swedish Radio P2). He performed extensively on various stages in Europe and recorded two critically acclaimed solo albums which reached the UK Classical chart top 10. 

Alfred Fardell 

Alfred Fardell is a pianist based in London specialising in song accompaniment and chamber music. He holds the Michael Gilsenan Award at the Royal Academy of Music where he studies Ensemble Piano under James Baillieu and Anna Tilbrook. Before joining the Academy, he gained a First Class degree in Music from St Peter’s College, Oxford, where he won the Gibbs Prize for his results in finals. His musical training started as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral under Martin Baker, where he toured and recorded extensively with the choir, and was featured as a soloist on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’. Recent highlights include an appearance at the Oxford International Song Festival alongside Anna Tilbrook and James Gilchrist, a recital of Ivor Gurney and Cheryl Frances-Hoad at the Holywell Music Room, a showcase recital as part of the Oxford Festival of the Arts, and Brahms’s Liebeslieder-Walzer in the Long Room at Lord’s. His studies are generously supported by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.