AJSW Classical music concert in London:
May 2011

Mansoon Bow is frequently in demand as both soloist and chamber musician in many major cities in Japan, as well as in the UK where she is currently based.

She was born in Japan of Korean origin.  She began studying the violin at the age of three.  She proceeded to the Royal Academy of Music in London and aquired a Bachelors and Masters Degree with a full scholarship.  Later she continued her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

Prestigious prizes came including the Osaka International competition and David Martin/Florence Concerto Prize at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2008, Mansoon won the 1st Prize and the Audience Prize in The Cavatina Music Competition and  recently chosen to receive the Byram Jeejeebhoy Prize and the Silver Medal Prize for students making the most outstanding contribution to work and performance activities.

Sam Liu hails from Vancouver, Canada where he began his piano studies until he moved to London to study. Sam has won various awards such as the first prize of "Il Circolo" Competition at the Italian Cultural Centre and has given recitals throughout the UK and Canada including a performance of Ronald Stevenson's Piano Concerto No.1 in the presence of the composer. Sam is also enthusiastic about conducting giving several performances with an orchestra of his own in Canada. Most recently, he conducted the production "La Finta Giardiniera" by Mozart with the opera company 'Opera at Home' giving many performances at venues such as the Reform Club London and Greenwich Playhouse in 2010. 

2) Kazue Yanagida (violin) with Julia Hsu (piano)

25 May 2011, 1:15 to 2:00pm at St. Dunstan-In-The-West

Kazue Yanagida began her studies with Noriko Miki at the age of five and came to England in 1988 to study at the Royal Academy of Music where she graduated with First Class Distinction for the violin performance having won two first prizes of violin competitions at the RAM, Alfred J Waley Violin Prize and Winifred Small Solo Violin Prize. During her time at the RAM she was under the guidance of Howard Davis and Zakher Bron and the Amadeus Quartet for chamber music. She has participated in many masterclasses including by Ruggiero Ricci, Ida Haendel and Anne-Sophie Mutter and was also a prizewinner of the Anglo-Czechoslovak Music Trust. She was given the honour of a loan of a prestigious Grancino violin from the RAM.

Having studied further for four years with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she gained a Diploma of Advanced Instrumental Studies, she has given many concerts in the UK and abroad and made several concerto appearances. She has played as sub-principal in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and worked with Sir Colin Davis, Tadaaki Otaka, Mark Wigglesworth, Alfred Brendel, Stephen Kovacevich and Freddy Kempf at venues such as the Barbican Hall and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. She has also lead the Cosmos Ensemble that gave a world premiere performance of Dai Fujikura’s “Shadow’s Light”.
Her last concert in October 2010 at St Dunstn in-the-West was broadcast by TV Shizuoka in Japan.

Julia Hsu is originally from Taiwan, studied with Patsy Toh and Pascal Nemirovski at the Royal Academy of Music, completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees with distinction.  In 2006, she was accepted as an Erasmus exchange student at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, where she benefited greatly from the guidance of Matti Raekallio. After obtaining the highest performance degree 'Soloklasse' with Professor Raekallio at the Hannover Hochschule für Musik und Theatre, in 2010, Julia is currently completing her second Master's Degree in Piano Accompaniment with Michael Dussek and Ian Fountain at the Royal Academy of Music, under a full scholarship from the Edna Seabright Award.