Hannah Bennett & Leo Nicholson

Hannah Bennett

Originally from Luton, Hannah Bennett is a student of the Royal Academy of Music on the Preparatory Opera MA under the tutelage of Yvonne Howard and Matthew Fletcher after graduating from the Academy with a first-class Honours under the guidance of Kathleen Livingstone and Audrey Hyland.

As a keen Lieder singer, Hannah has performed at the Oxford Lieder Festival, the Amersham Music Festival and was a 2017 Somerset Song Prize semi-finalist. Hannah has been a member of the prestigious Song Circle at the Academy since 2016 and has performed at venues including the Italian Cultural Institute, The Holywell Music Room and the Leeds College of Music as part of the Leeds Lieder Festival in December 2018.

Onstage, Hannah has recently performed the roles of The Fox (The Cunning Little Vixen, Janacek), Romeo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini), Meg Page (Falstaff, Verdi), Charlotte (Werther, Massenet), Rosina (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini) and Flora (The Enchanted Pig, Dove). Hannah features regularly as a soloist for oratorio works, performing at venues such as St John’s Smith Square, Ely Cathedral, Sheffield Cathedral and Arundel Cathedral. At the Academy, she was a soloist and regular chorus member for the RAM/ Kohn Foundation Bach Cantatas Series.

Hannah is a Nan Copeland Scholar at the Academy and is generously supported by The Aspinwall Educational Trust, The Mario Lanza Educational Foundation, The Split Infinitive Trust and The Josephine Baker Trust.

Leo Nicholson

Pianist Leo Nicholson specialises in chamber music and song accompaniment. In 2018 Leo was a Leeds Lieder Young Artist, and in 2016 he received the Accompanist Prize at the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards, accompanying his cousin, bass-baritone Sam Carl. In 2010 he formed a flute and piano duo with Rosanna Ter-Berg, and their critically acclaimed Purcell Room début (under the auspices of the Park Lane Group) in January 2012 led to performances at the Wigmore Hall and the Bridgewater Hall. Leo also works with saxophonist Anthony Brown, who he met through the Worshipful Company of Musicians, and they have since played together all over the country.

Leo Nicholson studied at the Purcell School, the Junior Royal Northern College of Music, and with Douglas Finch and the late Yonty Solomon at Trinity Laban, and is currently studying accompaniment at RAM. At Trinity, he won the Beethoven, Chopin, Academic and Keyboard Faculty prizes along with a Silver Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians.

Leo has performed at many of the country’s major venues (including Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Kings Place and the Bridgewater Hall) and over thirty music societies as a soloist and with others. He also works in theatre, opera and with six-piano group Piano Circus.