The Royal College of Music (RCM) in London has appointed Elizabeth Bass and Oliver Wass to join its harp faculty, beginning in the fall 2025 semester. Royal College of Music Head of Strings Gary Ryan says in a press release, “Both [Bass and Wass] bring a fantastic range of experience as solo, chamber, and orchestral players to the string faculty.” The new faculty members join Jana Boušková and Ieuan Jones in the harp department.
Bass says she is excited and honored to join the RCM faculty this fall. She will teach one-on-one lessons and larger classes, and coach orchestral and chamber music projects. “I hope to prepare students for diverse careers, exploring music across genres and the evolving role of the harp in different professional settings,” Bass says. “My focus will be on enhancing the orchestral provision for harp students, aiming to develop a comprehensive [curriculum] that includes standard audition repertoire, contemporary repertoire, music from shows and light music, studio work, and sight-reading. I also want to introduce students to the harp music of different symphonic composers, helping them understand each composer’s unique sound world and the harp’s role within it.”
Wass says he looks forward to making connections with other faculty, both within and outside the harp department. “I’m delighted to have been appointed to this position, and I’m really looking forward to working with the students on all aspects of their technical harp playing and musical artistry,” Wass says. “I want to encourage every harpist to play chamber music, as it’s the area of music which gives me the most joy.”
Bass is principal harp of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She has performed at the BBC Proms, recorded at major session studios in London, and given recitals at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall in New York, and the Musikverein in Vienna. Silver medalist at the 2016 USA International Harp Competition, she is also a member of Her Ensemble, the UK’s first female and non-binary orchestra, dedicated to performing works by underrepresented female composers. Bass holds a First Class Honours degree from the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with Skaila Kanga. She also studied for one year at the Paris Conservatory with Isabelle Moretti and studied privately with Sivan Magen and Eleanor Turner. Learn more on her website.
Wass plays both modern and early harps, and has performed the Handel Harp Concerto with the English Concert at the Wigmore Hall on the triple harp, as well as touring to New York’s Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, and Salzburg Mozarteum. He has won the Suoni d’Arpa International Competition in Italy, the International Harp Competition of Slovenia, and the Jury Prize at the International Harp Competition in Szeged, Hungary, and is the first harpist ever to win the Guildhall Gold Medal. His flute-viola-harp trio, The Pelléas Ensemble, won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition and was recognized as “supremely talented” in Harp Column’s recording review of the group’s debut album Nature and the Imagination. Wass holds a First Class Masters Degree from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he studied with Imogen Barford. He graduated from the University of York with a First Class Honours degree in chemistry. Learn more on his website.
