Young Artist’s Recital
Sofía Gómez Alberto violin & viola, Arthur Di Francesco piano
10 May 2024, 7.30pm
This concert is promoted by Sofía Gómez Alberto https://sofiagomezalberto.com/
Programme
Bowen Melody for the G String op. 47
Chopin Ballade no.4 in F minor op. 52
Bowen Allegro de Concert op. 21 no. 2
interval
Schubert Fantasie in C major D. 934
Sofía Gómez Alberto is a Spanish violinist and violist currently in her second year of Master of Performance at the Royal College of Music, studying under Itzhak Rashkovsky and Nathan Braude. Passionate about chamber music, Sofía has played with various ensembles and performed in festivals such as the Chipping Campden Music Festival, Stamford International Music Festival and Musethica. Also a keen orchestral player, Sofía has taken part in several youth orchestras such as the European Union Youth Orchestra, Joven Orquesta Nacional de España, LGT Young Soloists and the Cuban-European Academy at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.
Born in Zaragoza, she started learning the violin at the age of 5 with Valeri Gazarian. In 2017, Sofía moved to London to further her studies at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama under Anna-Liisa Bezrodny. At the end of the year, she was awarded the Lutine Prize, as a result of which she performed Saint-Saëns Violin Concerto No.3 in Milton Court Concert Hall as a soloist with the orchestra of the School. In July 2022, Sofía completed her undergraduate studies at the Royal College of Music with Lutsia Ibragimova and Yuri Zhislin, graduating with First Class Honours. She was also awarded the Viola Prize at the 2022 RCM Viola Competition. Throughout her studies, Sofía has participated in masterclasses with artists such as Maxim Vengerov, Mari Tampere-Bezrodny, Alina Ibragimova, Tanja Becker-Bender and Valentina Korolkova.
Sofía plays on a Nicolò Gagliano violin and a Joseph Hill viola, both kindly on loan from the Royal College of Music. She is an Antonio Brosa Award Holder and is grateful to have received the ABRSM Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Award, a St Marylebone Educational Foundation grant and an AIE Grant to support her current studies. https://sofiagomezalberto.com/
French-Spanish pianist Arthur Di Francesco recently graduated from the Royal College of Music, London with First Class Honours, having studied solo piano with Gordon Fergus-Thompson and collaborative piano with Simon Lepper. He previously studied at the RCM Junior Department with Venezuelan pianist Clara Rodríguez, where he was awarded the Constance Poupard Piano Prize and participated in the Première of the “Spectrum 5” album of pieces commissioned by the ABRSM. A Finalist of the Jaques Samuels Junior Intercollegiate Piano Festival and the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Instrumentalist Prize, he has performed in venues including the Wigmore Hall, the 1901 Arts Club (London), the Elgar Room (Royal Albert Hall) and the Cadogan Hall.
A keen chamber musician, he has performed in various group formations in France, Spain, Germany and the UK and been coached by eminent performers including Alina Ibragimova, Cedric Pescia, Anna-Liisa Bezrodny, Mari Tampere-Bezrodny, Avri Levitan, Emanuelle Bertrand, Niklas Schmidt, Sebastian Schmidt and Ralph Evans. He has previously been selected to participate in the International Mendelssohn Festival Summer School, Hamburg, and Rostock Summer Campus, and was recently chosen to take part in the Notos Piano Quartet Chamber Music Academy 2023, playing alongside members of the ensemble as part of the course.
https://sofiagomezalberto.com/