My Experience As A Clarinettist

Although I began learning the clarinet quite young, it was only in my final years at school that I began to discover a love of performing. I subsequently won the Highgate Young Musician of the Year competition in 2017 and performed the Stanford Clarinet Concerto with Ealing Youth Orchestra in the same year.

Whilst studying at Cambridge, I held an Instrumental Award and was selected to be on the CAMRAM scheme, through which I had clarinet lessons at the Royal Academy of Music with Angela Malsbury and Tim Lines. At the Royal College of Music, I performed with the RCM Symphony Orchestra and RCM Opera, and I was featured in the RCM 'In Focus' and 'Chamber Essentials' concert series. I hold a keen interest in the early clarinet, which I studied with Colin Lawson, alongside my modern clarinet studies with Tim Lines and Peter Sparks.

As a performer, I try to create themed recitals, championing lesser-known music and trying to create coherent concert programmes built around specific ideas. My two main recitals at the RCM were built around academic concepts that I wanted to explore: 'Can Functional Music be Beautiful?', and 'What is Romantic Music?'. Over the last few years, I have also premiered over ten different pieces by my peers, including a new clarinet concerto by Nacho Mañá Mesas and Robin Haigh's 'Lago' for clarinet and string orchestra.

In 2022, I founded Duo Mercadante with the pianist Antonio Morabito. Together, we perform concerts and recitals in London and across the South East of England.