KKMS - Marie Vassiliou and Loo Bang Hean

Vocal Recital by Marie Vassiliou (Soprano), Accompanied by Loo Bang Hean on Piano - April 2006

Biography of Marie Vassiliou (Soprano)

Marie Vassiliou was born in Hertfordshire of Greek-Welsh heritage. She studied Viola and Singing at the Royal College of Music, where she won numerous prizes including the Tagore Gold Medal as outstanding student of her year.

She has sung in most major concert venues in the UK (including The Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall), under conductors including Martyn Brabbins, Sir Andrew Davis, Vernon Handley, Wayne Marshall and Sir David Willcocks, and has broadcast on Radio 3, Classic FM and Radio France. She has an extensive oratorio and concert repertoire and has recently returned from a triumphant debut recital in Zurich (‘Freunde des Liedes') for which she was critically acclaimed.

In opera she has worked in Austria , Germany , Italy , Japan , Mexico , Russia and the USA . Her roles include: Desdemona , Gilda , Leila , Micaela , Anne Trulove , Tosca , Violetta ; Foreign Princess ( Rusalka ), Maliella ( Jewels of the Madonna ), Miss Jessel ( Turn of the Screw ). Contemporary roles include: Belisa ( The Nightingale's to Blame by Simon Holt; Vienna , Austrian premiere), Desiree ( Jago by Mike Westbrook, world premiere, role written for her).

As a baroque singer she has made four CDs with Janiculum and appeared in the Palermo Scarlatti Festival, Eisenstadt Haydn Festival and on tour in Japan with the Purcell Quartet. Handelian operatic roles include: Emira (Siroe ), Il Pastor Fido ( title role ), Poppea ( Agrippina ) and Theodora ( title role ).

Miss Vassiliou has especially established herself as a gifted interpreter of contemporary music and has performed as solo soprano with Composer's Ensemble, Continuum Ensemble, Contemporary Consort, Endymion and The Philharmonia.

She has given premieres of works by Dutilleux , Tippett , Judith Weir & Mike Westbrook and world premieres of works written especially for her by Richard Chew, Anthony Gilbert and Kenneth Hesketh .

Engagements have included: Tippett 's ‘The Heart's Assurance' (Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival; also Poland premiere at the Wratislavia Cantans Festival), Julian Anderson 's ‘Sea Drift' (BBC Proms season), Anthony Gilbert 's ‘Beastly Jingles' (Royal Festival Hall with The Philharmonia ) and Gilbert 's ‘Long White Moonlight' (Purcell Room with the Endymion Ensemble). Anthony Gilbert has just completed a song cycle, Encantos, written especially for Miss Vassiliou and the Endymion Ensemble, which will be performed next year.

Later this year she will be performing the role of Florence Nightingale (from Richard Chew's opera, Mary Seacole) at the Linbury Studio, Covent Garden .

Biography of Loo Bang Hean (Piano)

Born in Ipoh, Malaysia, Bang Hean's early teachers include Serena Chow and Rickie Oui. He was the winner of the First National Mozart Piano Competition in 1987, and following his success in the LRSM performing diploma in that same year the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music awarded him a four-year scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music, London.

In England Bang Hean studied with Yonty Solomon, John Blakely and Dennis Lee. His successes during those years include numerous prizes at the RCM as well as an invitation to appear in a Royal Gala Evening at St. James's Palace attended by Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Awards from the Anthony Saltmarsh Prize and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust enabled him to undergo postgraduate studies for a year with Professor Ilonka Deckers in Milan. He also had the opportunity to participate in masterclasses conducted by Lev Naumov of Moscow Conservatoire, Yu Chun Yee and Peter Donohoe.

Back in Malaysia, Bang Hean frequently appears in solo recitals, chamber concerts and concerto performances. These include the 6 th , 8 th and 10 th International Piano Festival in KL and the Cuvée de Carcosa 1999 at Carcosa Seri Negara. Apart from teaching privately he is also an adjunct music lecturer at University College Sedaya International (UCSI). A frequent guest soloist of the National Symphony Orchestra in concerto performances, Bang Hean also works regularly with members of the orchestra, giving many chamber music performances. In 2003 he was invited to perform Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with Eric Lee and the PJ Youth Symphonic Band. He is frequently invited to conduct seminars and masterclasses around the country as well as adjudicate in music competitions. A keen promoter of local music talents, he was the artistic advisor and adjudicator for the National Piano Festival 2000 and 2001, a competition aimed at discovering and promoting local young pianists. Along with fellow pianist Ng Chong Lim and soprano Cecilia Yap he also founded La Serenata Musicale, a series of concerts aimed at providing young musicians the experience of public performing.