Masterclass

Heidi Pegler

SMF MASTERCLASS 2025 – PRESS RELEASE

The Celebrity Vocal Masterclass in 2025 will be led by Heidi Pegler

The next in our series of celebrity masterclasses, for singers, will be held on 11 May 2025 at Homefield Preparatory  School, Western Road, Sutton.  Further details will be announced in due course. 

The Vocal Masterclass will provide an unrivalled opportunity for some of our most talented singers from this year’s Sutton Music Festival to perform a favourite piece and work on it in public with soprano and singing teacher Heidi Pegler. 

Heidi Pegler enjoys a busy career both as a performer and an educator, having appeared at many of Britain’s leading concert venues.

Heidi studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Trinity College of Music, London. During her singing career, she specialised in Baroque Music working with Emma Kirkby, Evelyn Tubb, Michael Fields and Will Summers. In more recent times, she sang with London Voices on several films (e.g. The Hobbit, Harry Potter) working with Ben Parry and the late Terry Edwards.

Heidi is currently the Deputy Director of Music and Head of Singing at St Paul’s Girls’ School where she steers a team of 10 singing teachers. She is an adjudicator and co-ordinates the Richmond Music Festival. Heidi is an examiner and trainer for the ABRSM helping to devise the singing syllabus and was part of the working party on A Common Approach published by the Federation of Music Services. She has published several books including the award winning series The Language of Song (Faber); It’s never too late to sing (Faber) and It’s never too late to sing Christmas and The Best of Singing (Faber) Grades 1-3 and 4-5 selecting highlights from the ABRSM singing syllabus. Heidi was the chair of AOTOS (Association of Teachers of Singing) from 2018-2020 and steered the charity through the pandemic as well as devising a new online training course for teachers called ‘Essentials’.

Our series of Masterclasses, which began in 2015, has proved very popular with our talented performers.  It is funded by a bequest from the late Neil Heayes.  

Vanessa Latarche FRCM & Participants in the 2024 Masterclass

SMF MASTERCLASS 24 MARCH 2024 – PRESS RELEASE

Masterclass for Piano given by Vanessa Latarche

Sutton Music Festival organised a very successful and enjoyable Piano Masterclass given by Vanessa Latarche on Sunday 24 March at Trinity School.  The masterclass gave an opportunity for some of the Festival’s most outstanding musicians to work with an internationally renowned pianist.  They played works by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt and Kapustin.

Said Vanessa after the class had finished: ‘It has been a wonderful afternoon of music.  The students were all very well prepared and were responsive to the feedback.  It is such a joy to work with such talent.’

Professor Latarche has been Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music since 2005. Awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music in 2010 for outstanding services to music, an honour conferred on her by HRH Prince of Wales, in September 2011, she was granted a Personal Chair at the RCM, which gave her the title of Chair of International Keyboard Studies. As an extension to her keyboard faculty work, Vanessa was appointed as the Associate Director for Partnerships in Asia, which involves managing the RCM’s collaborative work in China and the RCM’s degree programmes at Nangyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore.

The Masterclass is funded by the Neil Heayes bequest.  Sutton Music Festival is supported by Arts Network Sutton, the HR Taylor Charitable Trust, and is grateful to Trinity School for the use of their piano and recital room.

More about Vanessa Latarche

A renowned pedagogue, with many international piano competition prize-winners amongst her students, Vanessa has been Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music since 2005. Vanessa was previously a professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music for 14 years, where she was made an Honorary Associate in 1997.

After studying at the Royal College of Music with Kendall Taylor and completing her training in the USA and Paris with Claude Franck and Vlado Perlemuter,  Vanessa was awarded many scholarships and prizes from international competitions. Her concert career has taken her to Europe, the USA and Asia, as well as many festivals within the UK. Vanessa’s interest in Bach led to a performance of the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues at the Lichfield International Festival in 1992, the performances being given over four consecutive evenings. She has performed as a soloist with international orchestras and those in the UK including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, working with many leading conductors. She is a Steinway Artist and has broadcast for over 30 years for BBC Radio 3 and has also broadcast extensively on the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4. To celebrate Queen Victoria’s 200th birthday in 2018, Vanessa appeared on BBC 2’s documentary on the Queen, Prince Albert and Felix Mendelssohn with Lucy Worsley, which was filmed in Buckingham Palace.

 Vanessa is Artistic Director of Hastings International Piano in which capacity she chairs the jury for HIPCC and oversees the artistic programme for HIP concerts.  She has been a juror and jury chair  for numerous international competitions in China, Poland, Russia, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Italy, New Zealand, USA, Singapore, and Hong Kong and has adjudicated the national keyboard final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year. In 2007 she was an advisor to the BBC TV programme ‘Classical Star’.

 Vanessa frequently travels to give masterclasses, to such institutions as Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Beijing Central Conservatory, Tokyo College of Music, Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, Seoul National University, Piano Texas, Oxford Piano Festival, as well as to other UK conservatoires and specialist music schools, and international summer schools.  She is an advisor to Lang Lang’s music school, Lang Lang Music World, in Shenzhen, China and has recently been appointed as Artistic Advisor to the Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

 Representing the professoriate, Vanessa  has served four terms of office on the Council, the RCM’s Governing body. As a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, in January 2023 she was elected to the WCoM Court as a Court Assistant. She is a member of the editorial board of Classical Music Magazine, Director of the Eileen Rowe Musical Trust, and sits on the Athenaeum Music Committee. She has contributed to the RCM’s publication, Inside the Conservatoire, to be published in 2023

SMF MASTERCLASS 5 MARCH 2023 – PRESS RELEASE

Masterclass for strings given by Ruth Rogers

Sutton Music Festival organised a very successful and enjoyable Masterclass given by Ruth Rogers on Sunday 5 March in Wallington Library.  The masterclass included participants from the 2022 Festival, playing violin and cello.  They played works by Bach, Sarasate, Paganini, Rachmaninov and others.

Said Ruth after the class had finished: ‘It was an honour to work with these incredibly talented young musicians. They responded so well to ideas and suggestions, and I think that it was a lovely opportunity for them to perform to an audience and interact with a professional musician. Huge thanks to the Sutton Music Festival for giving young people this opportunity.’

Ruth Rogers is currently one of the Leaders of the London Mozart Players, and regularly guest leads other major orchestras. She studied at the Royal College of Music, has won many prestigious awards including the Tagore Gold Medal and the Manoug Parikian Award. She now performs both at home and abroad both as a soloist and in various chamber music ensembles including the Iuventus String Quartet and the Aquinas Piano Trio.

The Masterclass is funded by the Neil Heayes bequest.  Sutton Music Festival is supported by Arts Network Sutton, the HR Taylor Charitable Trust, and is grateful to the London Borough of Sutton for the use of the library.

SMF MASTERCLASS 6 MARCH 2022 – PRESS RELEASE

Masterclass for wind players given by Gill Johnston

Sutton Music Festival organised a very successful Masterclass given by Gill Johnston on Sunday 6 March in Wallington Library.  The masterclass included participants from the 2021 Festival, playing trumpet, oboe, French horn and clarinet.  They played works by Mozart, Britten, Arnold and others.

Said Gill after the class had finished:  ‘I have had an enjoyable afternoon in Sutton.  The performers were enthusiastic and of a very high standard, with ages ranging from 5 to 16.  It is quite something for them to get up here before an audience.  They are all talented, and I hope I have given them some helpful feedback so they take away something positive.’

Gill is an accomplished bassoonist, founder of Harpenden Musicale, now one of the country’s largest private music centres, and musical director of the National Children’s Wind and Chamber Orchestras.  She is passionately interested in encouraging children to ‘make music’ and thoroughly enjoys music festivals all over the country.

The Masterclass is funded by the Neil Heayes bequest.  Sutton Music Festival is supported by Arts Network Sutton, the HR Taylor Charitable Trust, and is grateful to the London Borough of Sutton for the use of the library.