Scholarships
The William Lauder Scholarship
This annual scholarship was set up in memory of founder member and former Honorary Treasurer of the Summer School, William Lauder. Open to young singers from Northern Ireland applying to join the Charles Wood Singers for the first time, it enables the holder to participate in the Charles Wood Summer School week free of charge, including an individual singing lesson with internationally renowned vocal coach, Paul Farrington.
The 2024 winner of the William Lauder Scholarship is Claire Warburton
Claire Warburton
Claire Warburton is a classical-crossover soprano based in Newry, Co. Down. Having achieved her BA in Music and French from Trinity College Dublin, Claire graduated with a First Class Honours Master's Degree in Vocal Performance and Musicology from Maynooth University last year. Studying under Irish Soprano and Vocal Tutor Kathryn Smith during her MA, Claire focused her recital on French and German song, completing her thesis on research into French vocal pedagogy, vocal technique and song interpretation which was nominated for the Alison Dunlop Graduate Prize in 2023. Claire holds performance diplomas in both classical and musical theatre singing, as well as achieving her diploma in music theory and Grade 8 in piano performance.
Claire was one of thirteen singers selected throughout Ireland for the inaugural Chamber Choir Ireland Studio 2023-24, a training and development programme for emerging and aspiring artists aiming to pursue a professional choral career, rehearsing and performing under conductor Eamonn Dougan (The Sixteen, Britten Sinfonia Voices). As an avid chorister, Claire was a Choral Scholar of the Trinity College Dublin Chapel Choir for three years, as well as chorister and subsequent co-conductor of The Campanile Consort, Chamber Choir of the TCD Music Department, performing repertoire in French, German and Italian, as well as Hungarian, Icelandic and Portuguese. Since 2015 Claire has been a member of Kerygma: The Good News Choir based in NI, performing as soloist at the Palace of Westminster and Embassy of Ireland, London in 2019.
As a musicologist and artistic researcher, Claire has presented papers on the musical coding of Bernstein's West Side Story, French vocal pedagogy and music in Irish education at conferences for both the Society for Musicology and Society for Music Education in Ireland, as well as undertaking a study placement with the Contemporary Music Centre in Dublin during her MA, researching and digitising work of the late Irish composer Eric Sweeney.
Claire currently studies under the tutlege of vocal coach and musical director Ashley Fulton MBE, and aspires to build a professional performance and choral career alongside research into vocal and choral pedagogy, technique and development, song interpretation and vocal health.
“The William Lauder Scholarship is exactly the sort of thing Northern Ireland needs: financial incentive for young people to engage in Church Music. The Scholarship allows anyone, regardless of background, to participate in what I believe to be NI’s greatest annual week of music-making, and I am so grateful to the board of the Charles Wood Festival for granting it to me in 2017.”
“I spent my first year in the Charles Wood Singers as the William Lauder Scholar. The opportunity provided me with access to music that I had never sung before. The choral tradition became an incredibly important part of my musical education, and I was heavily involved with cathedral music for the three years that followed. The Charles Wood Festival is a must for any young singer from our country.”
The Theo Saunders Scholarship
The Theo Saunders Scholarship enables a young organist to attend the Festival week free of charge, working alongside the Charles Wood Singers under the guidance of the Artistic Director.
The 2024 winner of the Theo Saunders Scholarship is Tingshuo Yang
Tingshuo Yang
Tingshuo Yang is a pianist, organist, and composer. Born in China in 2004, he showed early passion for music. He studied piano in the UK from 2012 to 2016 at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and at the Conservatoire Luxembourg from 2017 to 2021. He received a music scholarship to Eton College in 2018. Since 2023, he has been the Junior Organ Scholar at the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, pursuing a BA in music.
He made his solo piano debut with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra in April 2019 and opened the ‘Young Luxembourgish Classical Talents’ recital series in Berlin in 2020. His debut piano album, J.S. Bach: Clavieruebung Part I: Partitas, was released on Luxembourg Classics in June 2024. In early July, it became the album of the week on Radio 100,7 in Luxembourg and received outstanding reviews from industry leading media, such as Pizzicato, which described the recordings as 'timelessly beautiful' and 'spontaneously creative', and hailed by Luc Boentges for its transparent nature, especially when dealing with the polyphony.
As an organist and composer, Tingshuo achieved his ARCO in organ playing in 2021 and was Highly Commended in the Northern Ireland International Organ Competition in 2023. He won first prize in the D’Overbroekes composition competition, was runner-up in the RCO Composition Competition, and was shortlisted for the BBC/NCEM Young Composers Award in 2024.
Tingshuo has received guidance from Geoffrey Govier, Jean Muller, Jenny Stern, Philip Scriven, Colin Walsh, and Claude Lenners. He was the organ scholar at the Charles Wood Festival in Armagh in 2023 and accompanies the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge for its daily services under Director of Music Christopher Gray.
“I benefited hugely from the experience of being organ scholar for the Charles Wood Summer School in two consecutive years. It was inspirational to work with musicians of the calibre of David Hill and Philip Scriven, and I also made some lifelong friends.”