YCAT announces 2024 artists

The Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) has revealed the three artists who will join its roster in 2024. In the Trust’s 40^th anniversary year it has added pianist Amiri Harewood, cellist James Morleya Fibonacci Quartet to its roster for career development and support.

The 2024 YCAT artists were selected by a panel of experts including Saffron Hall chief executive Angela Dixon, Britten Pears Arts music programme director Caro Barnfield, Royal Philharmonic Society chief executive James Murphy, Maestro Arts director and co-founder and Verbier Academy director Stephen McHolm and Tanya Bannister, president of the New York Concert Artists Guild with which YCAT will continue its partnership.

The panel also included YCAT chief executive and artistic director Alasdair Tait, who said: ‘It’s always such an exciting moment as we welcome a new group of artists into the YCAT family. The creative energy and genuine passion these young artists have demonstrated throughout the entire audition process, from the initial video applications, two live audition days in London and Germany and the final performances this week at Wigmore Hall, has been truly inspiring.’

Currently an undergraduate at the Royal College of Music, Amiri Harewood is a recipient of awards including the Ann Driver Trust Scholarship and the Kerr Memorial Prize for an Outstanding Pianist of Promise at the 2024 Royal Overseas League Competition. He regularly performs as a soloist and made his Southbank Centre debut with Chineke! Orchestra in July 2021.

Switzerland-based cellist James Morley is a new-music-focused performer with experience performing with ensembles including Kammerorchester Basel, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Apex. Having studied cello across Australia, he is now completing a Masters of Contemporary Music at the Musik-Akademie Basel.

Combining the forces of violinists Kryštof Kohout and Luna de Mol with violist Elliot Kempton and cellist Findlay Spence, the Fibonacci Quartet formed at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Now a resident ensemble at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia in Madrid and at the Dutch String Quartet Academy, the quartet have won awards including first prize in the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Competition, the Cavatina Chamber Music Competitio and the International Triomphe de l’Art Competition in Belgium as well as the Kirckman Society Award, and the Special Prize of the Shostakovich Association in Paris.

The chosen artists will receive global performance opportunities alongside strategic career planning and mentoring and professional publicity materials and digital support and advice.