Registered Charity No: SCO 36109
Home - What's On - Who's Who - FAQ - History - Fundraising - Links - Tickets - Contact Us
| Cilla Grant | Click here to go back to Who's Who.. |
After starting piano lessons at the age of 9 in Malta, where she was put straight onto Czerny Studies, Cilla played her first concerto with an orchestra when she was 13, Mozart’s Concerto in A major, K488. She studied for three years at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Max Pirani, during which time she performed concertos with the RAM orchestras and Mozart concertos with The Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner. After leaving the RAM, she spent several years as repetiteur to two professional opera companies, at the same time working as regular accompanist to instrumentalists and singers, including from ENO, with an emphasis on Lieder and song cycles. Cilla was resident pianist for instrumental courses, particularly those run by the wind section of the London Mozart Players, was soloist in many concertos, both for one and two pianos, including the Bach C Minor and C major and Mozart two-piano concertos and gave a lunchtime concert at St John’s Smith Square in London. She frequently played orchestral piano and undertook arrangements of several standard SATB choral works for SSA, both for publication and private commission
From 1992 – 1996 Cilla was Principal Pianist for the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival, both in the UK and USA. More recently, together with a singer and actor, she toured England with a review on the life of Daphne du Maurier, and was musician aboard a small luxury cruise ship, playing both piano and bagpipes, piping the ship off from ports all around the Mediterranean. When time allows, she also plays the Scottish Smallpipes though since her move to Cumbria in 2003, and although considering herself semi-retired, she has been kept very busy playing for Cumbria Opera, Cumbria Rural Choirs, the Solway Singers and for Cockermouth Harmonic Society.
Cilla is very pleased to have been involved with the Lanercost Festival since its inauguration in 2004. She played the piano part in Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle for the performance in 2005 and, in 2006, performed an exciting concert of music for two pianos with David Sutton. In 2007 she accompanied Carolyn Dobbin in Elgar’s Sea Pictures.
The members of Gretna Choral Society were delighted when she agreed to join the choir as their accompanist in 2005.
| Back to the Top |
