Recital: Nicola Hands – oboe, Jonathan Pease – piano

The Programme

Nicola Hands – oboe
Jonathan Pease – piano

The Watermill

Four country Dances
A New Dance
Lady Day
The Mulberry Garden
Nobody’s Jig

Sonata for oboe and piano
Moderato e grazioso
Andantino
Allegro (quasi Valse tempo)

Danza Gaya

The Artists

Nicola Hands and Jonathan Pease are an established oboe and piano duo who met at Cambridge University. Together they have performed at venues including St James Piccadilly, St Martin-in-the-Fields, St Mary’s Perivale, Peterborough Cathedral, St George’s Hanover Square, Waltham Abbey and the Schott Recital Rooms. In January 2020 they released their first album, ‘Light and Shade’, of which MusicWeb International wrote: ‘It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive and sincere performance of [Dranishnikova’s] Poem than it receives here’. Their second album ‘Phoenix’ was released in December 2020, and praised by numerous reviewers for the ‘immaculate playing’, ‘virtuosic cor anglais playing at its very best’ and ‘almost telepathic communication’.

Nicola graduated with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music, where she won the Evelyn Barbirolli prize for oboe and the Grimaldi prize for cor anglais. Nicola was the 2nd oboe/cor anglais player for the Orquestra do Norte from 2015-2017, and has been on trial with the Philharmonia Orchestra. She also plays with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Orpheus Sinfonia. She played oboe and cor anglais for The Light Princess at the National Theatre in 2013-2014, and has played for other shows including Miss Saigon. As a concert soloist, Nicola has performed Concertos by Martinů, Vaughan Williams, Mozart, Marcello and Strauss. In 2015 she was awarded a Jellinek soloist’s award by Croydon Symphony Orchestra, and subsequently played the Albinoni D minor concerto in Guildford in 2016.

Jonathan graduated with an MA in Music from Cambridge University in 2010 before undertaking further study as a pianist with Graham Fitch. He has worked with groups including the Royal Opera House, Garsington Opera, Glyndebourne Youth Opera, Spitalfields Music, Opera Holland Park, Chelsea Opera Group and the Orpheus Sinfonia, and has musically directed opera from the piano for Devon Opera and Opera Anywhere. Fiercely committed to music-making in his native east London, he conducts the East London Evensong Choir and Aldersbrook Community Choir, and is Director of Music at the historic church St Peter’s London Docks. He is also a prolific composer of opera and choral music.