Alumnus Will Harmer awarded Accompanist's Prize at Kathleen Ferrier Awards

Image
will harmer

Image credit: Emma Brown photographyEmma Brown photography

Alumnus Will Harmer (Worcester College, 2018) has won the Help Musicians Accompanist's Prize at the 2026 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, one of the UK's most prestigious competitions for emerging singers and collaborative pianists. The final took place at Wigmore Hall on 24 April and Will was playing alongside baritone Hector Bloggs, who took first prize.

The Kathleen Ferrier Awards are widely recognised for identifying and supporting exceptional young talent at the start of their professional careers. Alongside the principal prizes for singers, the Help Musicians Accompanist's Prize recognises excellence in collaborative piano performance.

As a collaborative pianist, Will has performed recitals at Cheltenham Festival, Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Oxford International Song Festival and International Lied Festival Zeist. Will is a City Music Foundation Artist 2026-27 and was previously an Oxford Song Young Artist and Graduate Musician-in-Residence at St Hilda's College. 

 

 

Professor Naomi Waltham Smith

In concert: how shared wonder opens our minds

How can shared experiences of music, art and natural beauty expand our imagination and help us better understand each other? Professor Naomi Waltham-Smith explores how moments of shared aesthetic attention can amplify our sense of curiosity and wonder, bringing our imaginative lives into our relationships with others.
Professor Peter Asimov

Professor Peter Asimov awarded SMT Emerging Scholar Award

Professor Asimov's article 'The Melakartas and the ‘République Modale’: Naturalizing Indian Scales in French Musical Modernism' wins the Emerging Scholar Award at this year's Society for Music Theory annual meeting.
Professor Nomi Dave

Listening to the Law research network

Professor Nomi Dave is co-directing a new research network, with Professor Nicole Stremlau (Faculty of Law) and Dr Tareeq Jalloh (Faculty of Philosophy). The network, Listening to the Law, is funded through TORCH for three years. It brings together academics, students, legal practitioners, artists, and others working on questions of sound and the law. To join the network or attend events, please email listening.law@torch.ox.ac.uk