Prizewinners' Recitals
Your chance to hear a beautiful programme of music sung by two prizewinners from
the prestigious HCO Singer of the Year competition.
SATURDAY 26 SEPTEMBER AT 5PM
St Paul's Church
Winchester SO22 5AB
Kindly sponsored by:
​Jackie St Johanser
SUNDAY 27 SEPTEMBER AT 4PM
Merley House
Wimborne BH21 5AA
​
Kindly sponsored by:
Meet the Recitalists ...
QUITO CLOTHIER - TENOR
Winner of the Sarah Harrison Prize 2025
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Quito Clothier is a 27 year old tenor from Hampshire. This summer he covered the role of Lensky in Tchaikovsky’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ at the Grange Festival with the BSO/ Lidiya Yankovskaya, where he made his debut in 2025 covering Gastone in Verdi’s La Traviata with the BSO/Richard Farnes.
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He is a keen songster, winning the Sarah Harrison Prize at the HCO Singer of the Year Competition in 2025, and he also took home 2nd Prize in the AESS National English Song Competition earlier this summer. Quito is one of the 2026 Rising Stars of Voice at the Edinburgh International Festival, and performed at Oxford Lieder’s Spring Song festival earlier this year with his duo partner, Dida Condria.
WILL PRIOR - COUNTERTENOR
Winner of the 2025 Anthony Lowrey Audience Prize and Roger Higgins Second Prize
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Will recently graduated with distinction in his Master of Performance at The Royal College of Music, where he was an ABRSM scholar. He has also received support from the Drake Calleja Trust, the Josephine Baker Trust, the William Gibbs Educational Trust, and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, which awarded him the inaugural Dame Janet Baker Award for most promising singer at audition in 2024. He will join the Royal Academy of Music's opera course in September 2026.
In November 2025 he won the Roger Higgins Second Prize and the Anthony Lowrey Audience Prize at the Hurn Court Opera Singer of the Year Competition.
This summer he joined Garsington Opera as an Alvarez Emerging Artist; he performed in their production of Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, directed by John Caird and conducted by Laurence Cummings. In August he also performed the title role in Ralph Bridle's production of Rinaldo at the Grimeborn opera festival.
In June 2025 he performed the principal role of Piero della Francesca in the Royal College of Music’s production of Jonathan Dove’s Seven Angels, directed by Sir Thomas Allen. ​
Will is a Britten Pears Young Artist (2025–26), receiving the Chandos Bursary, a Samling Young Artist 2026, and a Munster Recitalist (2025–27). In June 2025 he made his Wigmore Hall debut performing French song in a concert celebrating the music of Mel Bonis. Before moving to London, studied and worked in Oxford, graduating with first class honours in Music from Magdalen College in 2021.
MATTHEW CLEMMET - PIANIST​​
Matthew is a London-based pianist specialising in song, opera, and chamber music. He is the Adami Award for Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Royal College of Music for the 2026-27 academic year. He graduated with distinction from the Royal College of Music in 2026, where he completed his
postgraduate studies with Simon Lepper, Roger Vignoles,
and Kathron Sturrock. His studies were generously supported by the Russel Race Scholarship, the Leverhulme Trust, and Help Musicians UK.
Matthew was awarded the runner-up pianists’ prize at the Ashburnham English Song Awards in 2026. He has also won the pianists’ prize in the RCM Lieder Competition, as well as the second and third place pianists’ prizes in the Joan Chissell Schumann Competition and Brooks-van der Pump English Song Competition, respectively.
He has appeared as a Young Artist at the Shipston Song festival, and has performed at Wigmore Hall in the RCM Vocal Showcase and in the ROSL Annual Music Competition Gold Medal Final.
Also a committed chamber musician, Matthew regularly performs with his piano trio, Trio Storni, and last year performed Schumann’s Piano Quintet with the Sacconi Quartet in Folkestone.​​
2025 HCO Singer of the Year Competition finalists:
Hamish Brown, Chad Vindin, Alexandria Moon, Wenlan He, Quito Clothier, Maryam Wocial, Emma Humann, Will Prior, Erin Rossington,
George Curnow, Theodore McAlindon, George Reynolds