Vanessa Latarche (UK)

6th Isidor Bajic Piano Memorial Competition Jury member

vanessa_latarche

Vanessa Latarche studied at the Royal College of Music and completed her training in the USA and Paris, earning scholarships and prizes from many international competitions. 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, and Bournemouth Sinfonietta, working with many leading conductors.

Vanessa’s recital work has taken her to Europe, USA, and the Far East, as well as to many festivals within the UK, including Cheltenham, Harrogate and Huddersfield. Her interest in Bach led to a performance of the complete 48 Preludes and Fugues at the Lichfield International Festival in 1992, the performances given over four consecutive evenings.

She has broadcast for over 30 years for BBC Radio 3 and has also broadcast extensively on the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4. She has been a juror for international competitions in Serbia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, and has adjudicated the national keyboard final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year, which was broadcast on BBC television. In 2007 she was an advisor to the BBC TV programme „Classical Star“. Since September 2005 she has been Head of Keyboard at the Royal College of Music, having previously been a professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music for fourteen years, where she was made an Honorary Associate in 1997.

Vanessa frequently travels to give master classes, not only in UK conservatoires and specialist music schools, but also to such institutions as the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts, Tokyo College of Music, China Conservatory Beijing, and Seoul National University. With many international piano competition prize-winners amongst her students, Vanessa was nominated for the FRCM, Fellowship of the Royal College of Music, for outstanding services to music, which was conferred on her by HRH Price of Wales in May 2010. Most recently, in September 2011, Vanessa was appointed to the role of Personal Chair at the RCM, earning her the title of Professor of International Keyboard Studies.