Award winner's recital
Last night (31st October) Austrian-born Soprano Christina Gansch gave her winner's recital at the Royal Academy of Music in central London.
Performing in the adademy's famous Duke's Hall with Tom Primrose on the piano (himself winner of the 2013 Webb Award for Piano Accompaniment) Christina sang an evening of music from nine composers including Purcell, Rodrigo, Liszt, Quilter, Mozart, Schubert, Mahler, Berg and Wolf.
Highlights included Purcell's Oh let me weep from The Fairy Queen, Liszt's Oh! quand je dors, Quilter's Love's Philosphy, Schubert's Heidenroslein and Mahler's Fruhlingsglaube.
Christina, who received £14,000 from this year's Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Award, studied at the Mozarteum Salzburg under Gudrun Volkert before moving to the Royal Academy of Music to complete a postgraduate programme, in which she is in her second year.
The Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Award is not Christina's only award. She also recently won the 19th International Competition for Opera Singers Ferruccio Tagliavini in Austria where she also received the Dame Joan Sutherland Prize for the Best Soporano and the Karl Bohm prize for the best Mozart interpretation.
Christina is pictured (above) with Tom and Elizabeth Muir-Lewis from the Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Trust.