Since its founding in 1970, London’s Centre for Young Musicians has provided high quality music training for thousands of talented students. Uniquely amongst London training providers CYM’s focus is pan-London: our students are drawn from all of London’s boroughs and principally from schools in the maintained sector. The CYM Saturday Centre’s status as one of the Department for Children, Schools and Families Centres for Advanced Training (CATs) reflects CYM’s dual approach to supporting musical excellence – by enabling real access and supporting sustained progression. This is not something we are able to do alone. Long term partnerships between CYM and participating Inner London local authorities enable talented young musicians, most of whom would otherwise not get the opportunity to train at this level in a sustained way, to benefit from high quality, affordable, jazz and classical musical training

Wednesday 25th April 2012 at 7.00 pm - Firefly Acoustic
Tickets £6.00 on the door or pre-booked ; £3.00 Concessions
Firefly is a brand new collaboration between classical and jazz musicians playing a thrilling mix of jazz and world music including tango, bossa nova, contemporary pop and original compositions. Guitarist Patrick Naylor has played with Viper's Dream and his own Soundial project and won praise from critics including at Jazzwise, The Evening Standard and Time Out. He has played and composed for TV (most recently How to Look Good Naked on Ch 4 and Nina and the Neurons on C Beebies), film (Things To Do Before You're 30 starring Billie Piper) and radio; often with composer Dan Teper. Cellist Natalie Rozario is a member of London's vibrant "Loop Collective" band Fringe Magnetic and has also performed with Jamie Cullum, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Take That, Maximo Park and with Indian dancer Akram Khan. Her work also includes playing in the West End productions of Les Miserables and West Side Story and Det Ny Teater in Copenhagen. Award-winning percussionist and multi-instrumentalist Thierry Deneux completes the line up. Thierry won the Michael Kamen award for composition at the Bafters in 2005. He has played with The UK Beijing Opera, Buzzard Band and Mamadi Kamara and is much in demand as a session player. What the Papers Say Firefly Inventive acoustic guitar virtuoso Naylor (in).. this dynamic hybrid jazz-meets-classical project that explores tango, bossa nova, pop, jazz and world sounds via violin, cello and percussion. Time Out Patrick Naylor Highly articulate musician.....great warmth and swing. Tony Hall in Jazzwise Sensitive and unflashy with a shapely melodic line. Jack Mazzarik CD Choice in The London Evening Standard

The trio was founded by current and former students of the Royal College of Music, London by violinist Joo Yeon Sir, french horn player Jade Wing- Yi Cheung and pianist Natsumi Ikenaga. All three members have been performing as soloist, recitalist and in various chamber ensembles in the UK and came together in 2011 for their love of chamber music. They have been receiving coaching from RCM professor Nigel Clayton. Korean violinist strong>Joo Yeon Sir studies as a Royal College of Music Scholar with Dr. Felix Andrievsky and has performed throughout the UK and on radio including Wigmore Hall, Fairfield Halls, St. James’ Piccadilly, St.Martin-in-the-fields, BBC Radio 2 and Bulgarian National Radio. She won Grand Prix Leaureate at Nedyalka Simeonova International Violin Competition in Bulgaria and BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year 2005. Her winning composition was broadcast on BBC 3. She performed Delius Concerto with RCM Sinfonietta in 2010 as winner of RCM Concerto Competition and this performance was awarded Savage Club Prize for the best concerto performance during 2010-2011 at RCM. She is recipient of the prestigious RPS Emily Anderson Award and is grateful to MBF, PO/MMSF, RCM and Georg von Opel for their generous support. Born in Hong Kong, Jade Wing- Yi Cheungobtained both Diploma and Bachelor of Music at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, where she studied with Joe Kirtley and was supported by Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Outstanding Awards. Jade has recently graduated with Masters in Performance from the Royal College of Music as a recipient of the RCM-Hong Kong Scholarship and Hong Kong Jockey Dance and Music Fund, under the guidance of Susan Dent, Tim Brown and Philip Eastop. Jade has taken part in numerous music festivals such as Aspen Music Festivals & School, Charterhouse International Music Festival and Asian Youth Orchestra. In addition to her freelance engagements with the orchestras in Hong Kong and London, her major solo appearances include Haydn Concerto for 2 horns and Schumann’s ConcertStucke for 4 horns.
Japanese pianist Natsumi Ikenaga is in her fourth year on the BMus programme at the Royal College of Music, London, where she studies with Dina Parakhina and harpsichord with Jane Chapman. She was also a student of Kevin Kenner and Gordon Fergus-Thompson. Before coming to the UK, Natsumi studied at the Toho Gakuen High School of Music in Tokyo under Takahiro Hoshino and Shuku Iwasaki. She won Second Prize at the Japan International League of Artists Piano Competition as well as the Puigcerda International Music Festival Competition. Recently, she was awarded the Beatrice Leigh Prize from the RCM for the best BMus3 Piano Recital. She has performed at the Mirabelle Palace (Salzburg), Steinway Hall (New York), and the Tokyo Opera City Recital Hall.

Wednesday 25th July 2012 at 7:00 pm - Graham Fitch
Tickets £6.00 on the door or pre-booked ; £3.00 Concessions
Recital of Bach Goldberg Variations
Graham Fitch, M. Mus (Manhattan), GRSM (Hons.), ARCM, Cert. of Advanced Musical Studies (RCM), was a student of Stephen Savage, Peter Wallfisch and Roger Vignoles at the Royal College of Music, London, during the late 70s, and also studied harpsichord with Ruth Dyson. At the RCM, he was awarded the Borwick Prize, Hopkinson Gold Medal and Sydney and Peggy Shimmin Prize for piano playing, and a Belgian government scholarship to participate in harpsichord masterclasses with Kenneth Gilbert in Antwerp. In 1982, Graham was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, A Countess of Munster Musical Scholarship and a BUNAC award to complete his studies in the United States with Ann Schein and Nina Svetlanova. He established himself in New York and stayed for seven years, becoming Mme. Svetlanova's teaching assistant at the Mannes College of Music.
He has played in masterclasses by Leon Fleisher, András Schiff, Tamás Vásáry, Jeffrey Siegel, the Beaux Arts Trio (chamber music) and Kenneth Gilbert (harpsichord). From 1990 to 1997, Graham taught piano at the Purcell School, Centre for Young Musicians and St. Paul's Girls' School in London, as well as commuting monthly to New York to teach privately. Among his students' many national and international successes are the International Russian Music Piano Competition, BBC Young Artists’ Platform, Royal Overseas League, Derby Concerto Competition, South East Arts and UNISA Overseas Scholarship Competition. In the 90s, Graham studied further with Edith Picht-Axenfeld in Germany, and with piano guru Peter Feuchtwanger, making a study of his special exercises.
As a performer, Graham has specialised in the music of the high Baroque (especially Bach, Rameau and F. Couperin), Haydn, Mozart, Chopin and Schumann. He gave all-Bach recital programmes in the Bach year, all-Chopin recitals in the Chopin year, and more recently all-Mozart solo and chamber programmes in the Mozart year. He has performed concertos with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra under Bernhard Gueller and David Tidboald, as well as performances with Bryden Thomson and Iain Leddingham.
As a teacher, Graham was in high demand in the early 1990s at the Purcell School, privately in London and New York, and later as a piano professor at the University of Cape Town (1997-2008). He is now available in London as a private teacher. He has extensive experience as an adjudicator (Cape Town and Bloemfontein Eistedfodds), and as a national and international competition jury member (the Pretoria International Piano Competition, Sanlam National Music Competition, the Kawai Australasian Youth Piano Concerto Competition, and others). He has given masterclasses in the UK (including at the Royal Academy of Music, where he also deputised for Christopher Elton and took the Performers' Class, Chetham's School of Music), USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Pianist Maksim Štšura was born in Estonia in 1988 and started playing piano at the age of 6. After receiving his Bachelor’s degree with distinction at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre with professor Ivari Ilja, Maksim moved to London and is currently studying at the Royal College of Music with professor Gordon Fergus-Thompson. His studies are generously supported by the RCM scholarship. In 2008 Maksim was awarded a scholarship for participating in The International Holland Music Sessions Summer Academy. During 2008 – 2009 he was an Erasmus exchange student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, where he was studying under the guidance of professor Volker Banfield. Maksim Štšura has participated in master classes with Nina Seryogina, Philip Kawin, Tatjana Szebanova, Veera Gornostayeva, Daniel Pollack, Lily Dorfman, Arbo Valdma, Jan Marisse Huizing, Willem Brons, Tamas Ungar, Rolf Plagge, Hu-Ying-Liu Tawaststjerna and Eliso Virsaladze.
Maksim has won prizes at several national and international competitions, including Republican Competition for young pianists in Tartu, Estonia (1998) – III prize, International Frederic Chopin piano competition in Narva, Estonia (2000) – I prize, International Jevgeny Mravinski Competition in Saint Petersburg, Russia (2001) – laureate title, International competition “Young musician” in Tallinn, Estonia (2002) – III prize, Steinway-Klavierspiel-Wettbewerb in Hamburg, Germany (2004) – I prize and public award and VII Estonian Piano Competition – I prize. In 2008 he was awarded the Yamaha and in 2010 – the Helmi Valtman scholarship.
Maksim has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in Estonia, Russia, Germany, Austria and Holland. He has collaborated with such orchestras as Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Saint Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra, National Opera Estonia Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orcehstra of Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Narva Town Symphony Orchestra and conductors Nikolai Alexeev, Paul Magi, Aleksandr Titov, Jüri Alperten, Anatoli Štšura, Mihhail Gerts and Risto Joost. Maksim has also collaborated with singers Svetlana Halttunen and Julia Lentsman, violinists Anna-Liisa Bezrodny, Danae Taamal, Kaija Lukas and cellists Henry-David Varema and Indrek Leivategija, flutist Oksana Sinkova and oboe player Simone Sommerhalder.