WITNEY MUSIC SOCIETY - NOVEMBER 2010 CONCERT

The Countess of Munster

Musical Trust Concert

MATTHEW FEATHERSTONE

flute

PHILIP SHANNON - piano

Matthew Featherstone started playing the flute at the age of six in France, where he was brought up. From 1999 he pursued his flute studies at the Orléans Conservatoire with Arlette Biget, where he achieved his "premier prix" for flute in 2004, and his "premier prix" for chamber music the following year.

Since moving to England, he has played with various orchestras in London and has performed in many chamber groups such as Circle of fifths wind quintet, the Aelius flute and harp duo, and Trio Anima (flute, harp and viola), who were finalists of the Royal Overseas League in 2007, and gold medallist of the Camac Harp chamber music competition in the same year.

Matthew Featherstone is a recipient of the 2010 Countess of Munster Recital Scheme. The Scheme provides professional performance opportunities for the most outstanding of the Trust’s beneficiaries, who in the opinion of the Trust are on the threshold of first class careers on the concert platform.

He won the Gold Medal of the Wind class in the Marlow Concerto Competition (2008), the British Flute Society Award and the prestigious Needlemakers wind prize (2009). Matthew is currently studying under the Guildhall Artist MMus Programme with Philippa Davies Sarah Newbold and Ian Clarke at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was recently awarded a Worshipful Company of Musicians Busenhart-Morgan-Evans award towards his postgraduate studies and is very grateful to the MBF, the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund and the Worshipful Company of Plaisterers and Honorable Society of Knights of the Round Table for supporting him in his studies.

Philip Shannon took his first degree from Oxford, where he was a mathematics scholar at the age of 16.
Encouraged by Roger Vignoles to follow his first love, piano accompaniment, he entered the Guildhall School of Music in 1985 for advanced studies under Paul Hamburger and Gordon Back. After winning all the accompaniment prizes in his first year, he was awarded a scholarship to study vocal repertoire with Graham Johnson.
He has been active in every capacity as a musician: as repetiteur with experience at English National Opera and numerous smaller companies; as organist at the church of St Anne's, Soho; as vocal and instrumental coach at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; as broadcaster on Radio 3 with the violinist Leo Payne, with whom he was a joint winner of the National Federation of Music Societies competition; as pianist for both the London Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras, and continuo player with the London Mozart Players. For television he has worked on the Lesley Garrett Show.

In 1997 he received an Honorary Fellowship from the Guild of Musicians and Singers.

Concert Diary entry