BIOGRAPHY

British-Iranian pianist Roxanna Shini Mehrabzadeh is an award winning performer, collaborator, curator, composer and teacher. She has performed at distinguished venues across the UK and Europe including Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Steinway Hall, St James Piccadilly, West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Pushkin House, Sala Michelangeli (Italy), The Arlberg 1800 (Austria), Konzertsaal des Augustinum (Germany), Auditoria Joaquin Rodrigo (Madrid) and Nafplio Vouleftikon (Greece). 

 

As a soloist she has had the privilege of working under Nikolai Demidenko, Pascal Rogé, Leon McCawley, Artur Pizarro, Kathryn Stott, Graham Scott, Martino Tirimo, Julian Jacobson, Giorgia Alessandra Brustia, Peter Tuite, Charles Owen, Alberto Portugheis, Peter Nagy and Sergio De Simone. She was a prizewinner of the John Longmire Beethoven Piano Competition, where she was praised for her ‘orchestral sonorities’, The Alfred Kitchin Chopin Competition, The Alfred Kitchin Schumann competition as well as consecutive prizewinner of the Musical Odyssey Summer Masterclasses. Most recently, she performed at Steinway Hall where she was praised for her ‘exquisite taste' and 'poetic refinement’ 

 

Roxanna graduated in 2024 from her postgraduate studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in piano performance, with Distinction under the tutelage of Professors Peter Tuite and Martino Tirimo, as well as First Class degree (with honours) under Professor Yekaterina Lebedeva. Roxanna then became a Junior Fellow in piano accompaniment at Trinity Laban, where she currently holds a position as staff accompanist and curator.

 

As a sought after collaborative pianist, Roxanna regularly performs alongside vocalists and instrumentalists and has been coached by esteemed musicians such as Nicky Spence, Nuccia Focile, Pascal Rogé, Richard Stokes, Sergei Leiferkus, Panaretos Kyriatzidis, Eugene Asti and Helen Yorke. As a young artist Roxanna has participated in the Song Easel Young Artist programme, she was a consecutive finalist and prizewinner of all piano and voice competitions at Trinity Laban such as the Lilian Ash French Song Competition, English Song Competition and the Elizabeth Schumann Lieder competition with high commendations from pianist Roger Vignoles. As well as her work in song Roxanna has repetiteured for productions of Hansel and Gretel as well as scenes from Idomeneo, Il Matrimonio Segreto, Die Rheinnixen, The Rape of Lucretia, Les Dialogues des Carmelites, Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters, Jake Heggies Dead Man Walking and Elena Langers Four Sisters.

 

Roxanna maintains a strong identity through curation and performance in the development of Persian contemporary music, exploring its distinctive idioms and expressive possibilities within her performance practice - her commissioned works with Iranian composers in the diaspora will be released later this year. She has had countless global and UK premieres of new works by female composers such as Halina Harelava, Niloufar Nourbakhsh and esteemed composers such Stephen Montague, Amir Konjani and Graham Fitkin. She debuted her own work for the very first time in 2024 titled اگر هزار خودکار داشتم ‘If I had a Thousand Pens’ for piano and electronics in the sold out opening night of the New Lights Contemporary Piano Festival. She is co-producer of Displaced, a concert series bringing artists and audiences together through interdisciplinary storytelling & collective memory, promoting Middle Eastern and North African voices.

 

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