Piano trio are winners of 2022 Leamington Music Prize

A piano trio has won this year’s Leamington Music Prize – receiving a cheque for £1,250 and booking a date to play in the town later this year.

The Félicité Piano Trio, which was formed in 2018, played works by Lili Boulanger and Clara Schumann to win the competition held at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire last month.

The Trio is led by Ricardo Brown Roger who was born in Valencia in Spain, where he started his studies on the violin, before moving to the Royal College of Music in London and then as a postgraduate to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

The cellist in the Trio, Lucy Samuels, began her studies at the age of seven with the Berkshire Maestro Trust.

Now in her fourth year at the Conservatoire, she was earlier this year awarded the position of inaugural Student-in Residence with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.

The Trio’s pianist, Lucy Eccleshall, is from Derbyshire and in her final year studying for her Bachelor of Music Degree at the Conservatoire.

Like the other members, she is passionate about education and teaching piano and she will have a piano tutor book for beginners published this summer.

The Félicité Piano Trio will play in Leamington in the autumn as part of the Leamington Music Winter Concert Series.

Leamington Music’s festival director Richard Phillips, who was the adjudicator for the Leamington Music Prize, said: “Originally 23 groups from the Conservatoire entered for the prize and we heard seven of them on Monday.

"Not only was the standard extremely high but the range of music-making enormous with two string quartets, saxophone and trombone quartets, a trio of flute, cello and piano, a septet with harp formed to play Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro and the winning piano trio.

"It was not an easy task to pick a winner.”

He added “Over the years, we at Leamington Music have been pleased to support many talented musicians from the Conservatoire.

"They have been from various parts of the world, and we try to help them not only with actual concerts, but advice on marketing themselves and securing further work.

"The prize money has very sensibly been used on occasions to attend courses, which broaden experience.”

Leamington Music, launched in 2006, promotes the annual Leamington Music Festival - which takes place over the first bank holiday weekend in May - a winter season of concerts with a monthly series of string quartets in Leamington and early music in Warwick and a flourishing education programme, in association with Warwickshire Music.

The Leamington Music Prize was first awarded in 2009 with most of the funds contributed by The Friends of Leamington Music support group.

The group ensures that Leamington Music continue to promote concerts by international artists.

For more information about Leamington music, its forthcoming events and membership of the support group visit https://www.leamingtonmusic.org/