Natalie Johnson-Hyde lives in Surrey and is a graduate the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she gained Masters’ with distinction and was awarded the prestigious Concert Recital Diploma.
Here Natalie studied with Susan Waters and has performed in masterclasses with Susan Bullock and Dame Emma Kirkby and has worked closely with Iain Burnside, Jane Manning and Sarah Walker. Natalie attended the Purcell School for Young Musicians from age 16 where she studied voice under Tom Marandola supported by the Government Music and Dance Scholarship.
Aged 18 Natalie started at the Birmingham Conservatoire under Cathy Benson and graduated in 2012 with First Class Honors. Natalie has been a semi-finalist in The Handel Singing Competition and a finalist in the Thelma King Award for Singers. Natalie’s other competition success has included winning the The Ambache Prize and The Gordon Palmer English Song Prize, and taking second place in The Delius Prize.
Natalie has worked with British Youth Opera, Birmingham Opera Company alongside Graham Vick and Jonathan Dove, as well as many oratorio and recital appearances nationwide.
Some of her opera roles have included Amelia (Un Ballo in Maschera), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Nedda (I Pagliacci), Fiordilligi (Cosi Fan Tutti), Anna (Sir John in Love), Tina (Flight) and Cathleen (Riders to the Sea). This year Natalie is a Park Lane Group Young Artist.
American-British pianist Lana Bode specialises in contemporary music and cross-arts performance. During her school years, she studied with prominent American contemporary pianist Lisa Emenheiser. She then trained at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the guidance of Edward Auer. At the age of 20, she graduated with a BMus (High Distinction) and was named an Indiana University Founders Scholar. She subsequently moved to the UK, where she completed a Master of Music with Distinction at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2014, studying piano accompaniment with Andrew West and contemporary piano with Rolf Hind. Her final recital earned the coveted Concert Recital Diploma.
Lana was the first winner of the Viola Tunnard Young Artist award, resulting in a year-long career development programme at Aldeburgh Music under the mentorship of Roger Vignoles. Other prizes include the Oxford Lieder Young Artist programme (finalist), YCAT (semi-finalist) and the Paul Hamburger Prize for Song Accompaniment. Lana is a Samling Artist, a Leverhulme Artist and an alumnus of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. She has performed in song projects and masterclasses with Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Malcolm Martineau, Iain Burnside, Julius Drake, Sarah Walker, Dame Ann Murray, Natalie Dessay, Felicity Lott, Sir Thomas Allen, Thomas Quasthoff, Roderick Williams and Martin Frost.
Lana is particularly interested in cross-arts collaboration, commissions of new music, and mental health outreach. She is well-versed in extended techniques for the piano. Her highly-acclaimed final postgraduate recital explored subconsciousness in a programme featuring music by George Crumb, Henry Cowell and Joseph Schwantner. Lana is the co-founder and Artistic Director of the concert series Virginia Woolf & Music, through which she has commissioned a number of new works and premiered music by Jeremy Thurlow and Jan-Willem van Herpen. She has also performed for composers John McCabe, Jonathan Dove, Brian Elias and Sadie Harrison.
Lana has performed widely in prestigious venues including Wigmore Hall, Barbican Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Sage Gateshead, Byre Theatre (StAnza Festival), Clothworker’s Centenary Concert Hall (Leeds), Holywell Music Room (Oxford Lieder Festival), Britten Studio (Snape Maltings) and Canterbury Cathedral. She was an accompaniment fellow at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance from 2014-16, and is now a staff accompanist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Free recital (retiring collection)