Huw Wiggin & Oliver Wass

Huw Wiggin

Biography

Huw is professor of saxophone at the Royal Academy of Music in London and has given masterclasses at the Royal Northern College of Music and the Universities of Calgary and Lethbridge in Canada.

Huw is also the leader of the Ferio Saxophone Quartet and regularly performs with them in the UK and abroad.

Commonwealth Musician of the Year, First Prize and Gold Medal winner of the 2014 Royal Overseas League Annual Music Competition, Huw Wiggin is one of the most popular saxophonists of his generation. Highlights of 2016 included the commissioning of a Saxophone concerto, appearances at Brighton, Newbury and Ripon festivals, a return visit to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the release of a concerto CD.

Huw studied at Chetham’s School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music with Andrew Wilson and Rob Buckland. On graduating in 2008 with a 1st Class honours degree he won a scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) to continue his studies with Daniel Gauthier at the Hochschule für Musik, Cologne. In 2012 he graduated from the Royal College of Music, studying with Kyle Horch and gaining a Master’s Degree with Distinction.

Other prizes and awards include: a ‘Star Award’ from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, a Music Education Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund, the Philip & Dorothy Green Award, and a Martin Musical Scholarship. Whilst at the RCM he won the Concerto Prize, which led to a performance of Paule Maurice’s Tableaux de Provence.

In 2012 Huw was selected as a Park Lane Group Artist. He was praised for his ‘liquid gold tones and enviable breath control’ by The Times and premiered a new work Three Letter Word by Andy Scott. He has appeared at festivals and music societies throughout the UK and in major concert halls, including the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall and a performance of Milhaud’s Scaramouche at the Henley Festival. In July 2012 Huw was invited to perform recitals and a concerto performance of Eric Coates’s Saxo Rhapsody at the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

Oliver Wass

Biography

Oliver Wass is in his second year of a Masters Degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, for which he was awarded a full scholarship to study with Imogen Barford. He graduated from the University of York with a First Class Honours degree in Chemistry. 

In May 2016, he became the first harpist ever to win the Guildhall Gold Medal, the Guildhall’s most prestigious prize. Previous winners of the competition include Jacqueline du Pré, Bryn Terfel and Tasmin Little. He has performed all the major harp concertos, including directing the Handel Harp Concerto in the Barbican Hall. He has also performed concertos at the London Handel Festival, the City of London Festival, with the Oxford Sinfonia, and with the World Chamber Orchestra. He recently won the Andrea Vigh Jury Prize at the 4th International Harp Competition in Szeged, and will return to give a recital at the Gödöllő International Harp Festival in the autumn.

He is a 2016 St John's Smith Square Young Artist, and will be presenting recitals throughout the 2016/17 season, as well as commissioning a new work for solo harp.

He made his Wigmore Hall debut in 2016, where he was praised for his “tremendous dynamism” and "remarkable range of timbres and warmth of the tone” (Seen and Heard International). 

His flute-viola-harp trio; The Pelléas Ensemble, are winners of the 2017 Elias Fawcett Award for Outstanding Chamber Ensemble at the Royal Overseas League competition. In 2016 they won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition, and won a place on the prestigious Tillett Trust Young Artists’ Programme. In 2015 they won First Prize at the British Harp Chamber Music Competition. They are Park Lane Group Young Artists. 

They have a busy recital schedule performing around the country, and are active in commissioning new works for the combination which have been performed at St John’s Smith Square, the Two Moors Festival, and the United Kingdom Harp Association. They have appeared live on Radio 3.

An experienced soloist, Oliver competed in and won music festivals throughout his childhood. He studied with Charlotte Seale at the Junior Department of the GSMD, where he became the only harpist to have been a prizewinner in the prestigious Lutine Competition, and he was Principal Harp in the National Youth Orchestra.

Oliver is very grateful for support from the Norman Gee Foundation, The Countess of Munster Musical Trust, and Help Musicians UK, where he holds a Fleming Award.