Lunchtime Classical Concert | Ian Sankey & Anna Michels

Friday 9th January | 1pm-2pm

Ian Sankey (trombone) & Anna Michels (piano).

Ian Sankey

Ian Sankey is a musician and trombone player based in the North East of England. Ian works predominantly across the contemporary, classical, and early music scenes both at home in the UK, and throughout Europe.

Ian runs the Newcastle based new music ensemble 55minus1, a 6-piece group made up of trombone, trumpet, sax, flute, cello and violin. They create music that crosses the pop/classical divide through exciting new commissions and collaborations with artists and performers from a wide range of backgrounds. The ensemble aims to bring innovative, virtuosic and fun music to the North East and beyond.

Ian is the trombonist for the European ensemble S T A R G A Z E, with whom he has collaborated with pop giants including Dirty Projectors frontman David Longstreth, and electronic musician and visual artist Alva Noto. Their concerts and tours take place in concert halls throughout Europe and the UK, including in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, London’s Barbican Centre and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw.
Ian is also a member of contemporary pop group, the Northumberland Radical Fun Group, which has enjoyed residencies at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music and appearances at Significant Other Festival, Newcastle (2024).

As a duo collaborator, Ian works closely with composer Joe Snape, recent recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Artist Award. The duo create new works for trombone and electronics, featuring immersive clouds of swirling trombone loops to theatrical responses to the work of the composer Luciano Berio. Ian and Joe have worked on multiple residencies together at the Glasshouse ICM and perform in both music and theatre contexts across the UK.

Orchestrally, Ian performs regularly with Newcastle’s Royal Northern Sinfonia across many of their projects. He also works with other orchestras in the UK and Europe, including the Cologne Chamber and WDR Sinfonie Orchestras, as well as Opera North and Shadwell Opera.

In addition to his performance work, Ian is also a specialist music mentor for Hand Of arts education charity, working with vulnerable Looked After Children not in formal education. He also teaches trombone and wider brass across a variety of community projects in the North East.

Anna Michels

Scottish-Dutch pianist Anna Michels has performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She was one of the first students to be awarded a double bachelor degree from Maastricht Conservatoire in the Netherlands, studying both piano and music theory. Anna graduated from her Masters and Artist Diploma at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with Head of Keyboard Aaron Shorr.

Anna has performed major piano concertos with numerous Scottish and Dutch orchestras, including the Maastricht Academic Chamber Orchestra, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Symphony Orchestra, the Conservatorium Maastricht Symphony Orchestra and Falkirk Tryst Orchestra. Alongside her various chamber groups, she has won prizes at the International Anton Garcia April Chamber Music Competition, the International Swedish Duo Competition, the Scando Vocallis Lied Duo Competition, and the Elgar Spedding Memorial Lied Competition.

Anna has an interest in unearthing hidden treasures of the classical repertoire, with a focus on Scottish composer Ronald Center. This has culminated in giving lecture-recitals internationally, including at the London International Piano Symposium and Musica Scotica Conference.

Anna founded the “Ad Libitum Collective”, an ensemble at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland that explores the possibilities of free improvisation. The group collaborates closely with dancers, and this led to a multidisciplinary performance as part of the annual Piano Festival at RCS. As a solo improviser, she represented the RCS at the METRIC Improvisation Conference in Leipzig this year.

She currently teaches at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh, where she holds the position of Keyboard Faculty Assistant. Anna is a recipient of the Cross Trust and was awarded the Falkirk Civic Trust “Young Personality of the Year”. She is also a musician with charity Live Music Now Scotland with soprano Rosie Lavery.

A LIVE Lit & Phil Event | FREE

(If you would prefer to book directly over the phone, please call the Library Desk team on 0191 232 0192 and they will be happy to help)