Program and Artist Biography

Karen Geoghegan is from Livingston, Scotland. She had played the violin from age five before she began studying the bassoon with Russell Cowieson at age 12. A year later, she entered the Junior Academy of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she studied with Janet Bloxwich.

During her five years at the Junior Academy, Geoghegan won the Gilbert Innes Prize for woodwind and the 2004 concerto competition, giving her the opportunity to perform the Weber Bassoon Concerto with the Junior Academy Symphony Orchestra in December 2005. In January 2006, Geoghegan was selected to give a recital that was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland. She was awarded the Wolfson Scholarship in 2004 and 2005, and in her last term at the Junior Academy performed the Hindemith Trumpet and Bassoon Concerto with John Wallace. In her final year at school, Geoghegan was the first pupil in her county to be awarded the Brian Duguid Memorial Award for excellence in the performing arts, in memory of the local arts manager.

Geoghegan is also a keen orchestral musician. She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland for four years and has performed with Camerata Scotland and NYOS Futures. In June 2007 she was selected to take part in the LSO Woodwind Academy for promising young woodwind players.

Geoghegan is currently a second year undergraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music and studies with John Orford. She was awarded a full entrance scholarship from the South Square Trust and the Leverhulme Foundation. During her first year at the RAM, Geoghegan was selected to perform the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the Academy String Orchestra and was awarded the Violent M. Wallace Award at the end of the year. Geoghegan was runner-up in the recent BBC 2 programme Classical Star, performing the Hummel Bassoon Concerto with the City of London Sinfonia at LSO St. Luke’s for the final. Mentor cellist Matthew Barley said of Karen, “with her sound and focus she is already one of the great wind players in the country.”

Timothy End graduated with a first class honours degree in Music from King’s College, London in 2006 before beginning Postgraduate study in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music, where he gained the prestigious DipRAM award for an outstanding recital in 2008. He held the Shinn Fellowship at RAM for 2008-09 under the tuition of Julius Drake and Patsy Toh.

A multiple first-prize winner, Timothy was awarded the Parnell Award for an Accompanist at the ROSL Annual Music Competition in 2010. In June he accompanied the baritone Jonathan McGovern and the trumpeter Huw Morgan in the Grand Final at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Timothy and Jonathan will be making their Wigmore Hall debut in January 2012. In November Timothy was awarded the Gerald Moore Award for Piano Accompaniment at the Henry Wood Hall in London.

In April of this year Timothy was awarded the MBF Accompanist Prize at the Finals of the Kathleen Ferrier Vocal Competition at the Wigmore Hall.