#RWCMDCreative: Summer of inspiration

And a big croeso to our new Fellows.

and to Michael Plaut, our new Chair and our newest board members.

Welsh-American business giant, Sir Howard Stringer, made a hugely generous gift of £2m to the College, to help us restore and transform Cardiff's city centre.

You can't have missed the fact that this summer has come with a definite shade of pink, so let's start with Design for Performance grad Emily Bates.

Emily, who was also a Linbury Prize finalist, was Junior Set Designer/Draughtsperson for the smash-hit 'Barbie' movie.

She did the drawings for the five different minature sets in the film, for Weird Barbie, Circus Suburbs, a Beach miniature for the beach buildings, a desert miniature - complete with Miniature pink Corvette - and a Busy Town miniature. 

You can see them in this YouTube film. 

It's always very special for us to welcome BBC Cardiff Singer of the World to the College but this year was especially so. In June, not only was Cardiff Singer celebrating its 40th year, but RWCMD graduate Jessica Robinson became the first Welsh singer in twenty years to reach the final.

It was a double whammy for opera student Edward Kim, who not only won this year’s Sir Ian Stoutzker Prize, but also the heart of his true love.

He was so delighted with winning the College's prestigious award that he took the opportunity to propose to his girlfriend Weiying Sim.

Guitar student Luke Bartlett and recent grad Oliver Manning are the first RWCMD students to have been awarded the Julian Bream Trust scholarships.

After auditioning for none other than the legendary guitarist John Williams in London at the Royal Academy of Music, they’ve both been awarded full tuition fees for the forthcoming year.

In Jazz, and across College, we sadly said goodbye, and a huge thank you, to our Head of Jazz, Paula Gardiner with a celebratory AmserJazzTime. 

Paula has been at the College for nearly 23 years - and we look forward to welcoming her back as a JazzTime guest soon.

As always this summer saw the College celebrating music and culture at festivals across Wales.

At the National Eisteddfod, the annual celebration of Welsh language and culture, Vocal postgraduate Elen Wyn presented a showcase on Welsh composer David Harries, accompanied by performances from Harp grad Cerys Rees and Zoe Smith, Head of Postgraduate Music Programmes.

Cerys also joined RWCMD Guitar student Cai Charles in a recital of Welsh solo music, with Cerys performing a set of three pieces written for her by Composer-Performer graduate Tomos Owen Jones. Tomos is coming back to College this year, joining our David Seligman Opera School.

Llongyfs to classical postgrad guitarist Cai, who won the Solo String competition for 19 and over, and was selected to compete for the prestigious Rhuban Glas award as one of the four best instrumentalists across all competing categories.

Cerys and Tomos had a busy summer, going on to the Fishguard Festival of Music, joining Aulus Duo (made up of last year’s postgrad students, Ellie Knott on flute, Georgina Dadson, who works regularly for Live Music Now, on guitar).

Alongside this was a tribute to two significant Welsh composers, David Harries and David Vaughan Thomas - where Zoe Smith and Tomos Owen Jones were joined by grads cellist Tabitha Selley and violinist Alice Apreda Howells.

Design for Performance grads, Jodie Yates, Alexandra Kay and Dafydd Morgan, created and presented a puppetry promenade performance at this years Welsh language festival, Tafwyl.

The National Youth Choir of Wales brings together some of the brightest young actors, dancers, singers and musicians.

This year’s NCOW included a number of current, returning and new vocal students from RWCMD as well as students from our instrumental courses, performing works by recent Composition grads Oliver Trigg and Derri Lewis.

Although Arts Management students don't finish their studies until the autumn, as usual many of them have already got work, and as usual they represent many different areas of the arts:

Joanna Phillips is Learning & Participation Assistant at The Philharmonia, helping to run its outreach projects across the country and working with school children, young professionals, adults and people with dementia in partnership with local authorities and orchestra members.

William Forrest has joined Bristol Cathedral as a Music Assistant...

As well as its annual Balance exhibition in Cardiff and London, some Design for Performance students also worked at the prestigious Prague Quadrennial celebration of scenography. 

Stage Management student Johanna Bunyan joined them.

Stage Management student Grace Taylor volunteered on the Ethnic Minority Welsh Women Achievement Association Festival of Communities.

Working with Professor Meena Upadhyaya, Emerita Professor, Division of Cancer and Genetics at Cardiff University, the founder and chair of the awards, Grace managed the stage, liaised with the engineers and also worked with Rahim El Habachi, Creative Associate with National Theatre Wales.

Two acting grads have been nominated for The Stage Debut Awards 2023: Isobel Thom for her titular role in 'I, Joan' at Shakespeare’s Globe, which she performed straight after graduating last year. And Rhian Blundell, for her role in 'Let the Right One In', at Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.

It'll be a bit of an RWCMD reunion as 2020 grad and award-winning actor Callum Scott Howells of 'It's a Sin' and 'Cabaret' fame, will be presenting at the awards on Sunday 1st October. 

Another actor to make their stage debut is MA actor Tanya Katyal, who graduated this July and walked straight into a lead role at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She played Rani Das, in its new production The Empress, to great acclaim.

We follow @royalwelshMT stories on instagram to keep up with Musical Theatre grads news:  MT shared that grad Dominique Skinner is appearing in Ainadamar at Welsh National Opera this season, having previously toured in the same production with Scottish Opera.

Eric Hallengren plays his first leading role as Nick Bottom, one of a pair of brothers in the new Renaissance comedy Something Rotten in Finland in September.

Both Sean Lewis and Ania Davies are supporting Lucie Jones live in concert and Tim Roberts is in the UK touring production of Tim Sheader's original production of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. 

We could go on, but follow @royalwelshmt for more.