Lydia Scadding

Lydia graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge with Double First Class Honours in Music in 2010. She was a Specialist music scholar at Wells Cathedral School, where she studied piano with Hilary Coates from the age of nine. As a result of winning the WCS Concerto Competition in 2006, Lydia performed the Ravel G Major Piano Concerto under Christopher Adey in Wells Cathedral. Lydia has enjoyed success in several national competitions, winning the Intercollegiate Beethoven Piano Competition (2005) and becoming piano finalist of the BBC Young Musician of the Year (2006). In summer 2009, she was delighted to win a full scholarship to attend the Astona International Music Academy in Switzerland, where she received masterclasses from John York, Robert Rozek and François Killian. In December 2009 Lydia achieved Distinction in her LRSM Performance Diploma.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Lydia has given many professional concerts across the UK - including in the Chelsea Arts Club and St. Georges, Brandon Hill - and in Switzerland, Spain and China. She has also performed in the Bath and Cheltenham International Music Festivals, and in venues such as the Symphony Hall in Birmingham, and the Sage, Gateshead. Lydia won first prize in the university-wide 2009 CUMS Concerto Competition, as a result of which she performed Bartok’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the leading Cambridge University symphony orchestra under Dmitri Sitkovetsky. She went on to win the Nigel W. Brown prize in her final year, and will consequently give a concerto performance with the Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra in West Road Concert Hall in 2011.

While at Cambridge Lydia learned piano with Matthew Schellhorn, and received kind support from Emmanuel College, the Burnaby and Jameson Music Funds, and the Instrumental Award Scheme. She looks forward to continuing her musical studies under John Byrne at the Royal College of Music from September 2010.