Competition pianists

Julia Lynch

PIANIST

Julia Lynch is Head of Music of Mascarade Emerging Artists, Florence. Born in Dublin and raised in Aberdeen, Julia began piano lessons at the age of four, studying with Denis Matthews and David Parkhouse at the North East Scotland Music School. In 1982, Julia won a scholarship to study piano at the RSAMD in Glasgow with Laurence Glover. Whilst a student at the academy, she won all the available prizes for piano solo, accompaniment and chamber music. Having gained her BA and completed a year of postgraduate study, Julia joined the staff of the academy as vocal coach until 2022. Julia is one of the busiest accompanists in the UK, appearing in recital with many distinguished artists. Concerts have taken her all over the world, with recitals in London, Tokyo and Geneva, as well as appearances at the BBC Proms, the Edinburgh International Festival and Cardiff Singer of the World. She appears as orchestra pianist with the BBC SSO, the RSNO and SCO, and broadcasts and records regularly. Before becoming Head of Music at the New Generation Festival and Mascarade Opera Studio, Julia was music assistant to Eberhard Friedrich at the Bayreuther Festspiele in Germany.

Florent Mourier

PIANIST

Florent Mourier is a French pianist based in London. He is specialised in vocal repertoire (art song and opera) and is highly sought after as a recitalist and a coach.

​Florent has played at the Wigmore Hall, the Barbican Hall, Milton Court, St John’s Smith Square in London, the Holywell Music Room at the Oxford Lieder Festival, at Festival d’Aix and Fondation Royaumont in France, Brussel’s La Monnaie in Belgium, Utrecht’s Tivoli Vredenburg and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in the Netherlands.

​​Both as a solo and a collaborative pianist, he has participated in masterclasses and residencies with Dmitri Bashkirov, Pascal Devoyon, Martin Katz, Malcolm Martineau, Iain Burnside, Graham Johnson, Julius Drake, Alain Planès, Renee Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Edith Wiens, Angelika Kirchschlager, Gerald Finley, Matthew Rose, Stéphane Degout, Richard Stokes, Wolfgang Holzmair and Joyce DiDonato. 

Florent is a laureate of the Dutch Classical Talent Competition and performed a tour of twelve song recitals at major venues in the Netherlands with mezzo soprano Esther Kuiper. Along with mezzo-soprano Grace Durham, Florent was a semi-finalist of the 2019 Das Lied International Song Competition in Heidelberg, Germany.

Florent has worked as a vocal coach/répétiteur/assistant conductor on productions of Zemlinsky’s Eine Florentinische Tragödie (Fondation Royaumont/Opéra de Rennes), Verdi’s Falstaff (Royaumont), Bizet’s Carmen (Barefoot Opera), Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (Opera North) and Georgiana (early classical pasticcio, Buxton Festival).

​Florent is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, an ENOA Young Artist, a laureate of the Fondation Royaumont and a member of the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

Highlights of the season 2021/2022 include coaching and curating a recital of songs and chamber music works by Pauline Viardot for the Guildhall School, performing a French mélodie recital at the Classix Festival in Romania, working on Carmen and Margot La Rouge at Opera Holland Park and performing an all French recital of songs and arias with the young artists of the National Opera Studio for the French Ambassador in London and the Franco-British Society.

​Florent graduated from the Artist Masters’ course in solo performance, vocal accompaniment and chamber music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (studying with Charles Owen, Martin Roscoe and Pamela Lidiard) and the National Opera Studio.

​Florent now works as a freelance concert pianist and accompanist, as well as a staff pianist, vocal and language coach at the Guildhall School of Music and the National Opera Studio.