Will Duerden and Svitlana Kosenko

Will Duerden (double bass) Svitlana Kosenko (piano)

Max Bruch – Kol Nidrei
Vilmos Montag – Sonata in E minor for Double Bass and Piano
Gabriel Fauré – Berceuse
Emil Tabakov – Motivy
Astor Piazolla – Ave Maria
Giovanni Bottesini – Alla Mendelssohn

Will Duerden is highly sought-after as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader, with a growing international career. He rose to prominence after reaching the strings category final of the 2018 BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.

A winner at the 2023 Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions, he was subsequently nominated as a Classic FM ‘Rising Star’ 2024, and announced as a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship artist in the same year.

Recent performance highlights for Will include his debut at St. George’s Bristol and performances at the North Norfolk Music and Buxton International Festivals, as well as Wigmore Hall and Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham. In June 2025 he was part of a stellar ensemble of YCAT artists past and present to celebrate the charity’s 40th anniversary at the Aldeburgh festival.

Will also maintains an interest in new music, and has had several significant new works specially written for him, with recent premieres in London and Milan. He also recently performed Ian Stephens’ double bass concerto ‘Scenes from a Modern War’ with the Kensington Chamber Orchestra in October 2024.

Will has also distinguished himself as a leading orchestral player, regularly performing with the Gothenburg Symphony, Aurora Orchestra, John Wilson’s Sinfonia of London Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Northern Sinfonia; the latter whom he joins as Principal Bass during the 25/26 season.

Svitlana Kosenko was born in Ukraine and first studied at the Kharkiv Special Music School under Professor Svitlana Zaharova. After graduating with both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from Kharkiv University of Arts, where she studied with Professor Natalya Melnikova, Svitlana returned to her alma mater as a principal piano teacher at the Kharkiv Special Music School.

She is a laureate of many international competitions. In 1999, she won Second Prize at the International Competition of French-Polish Music in Paris. In 2001, she took First Prize in the Smetana International Competition and received a Special Prize for her performance at the Enescu Competition. In 2012, she was awarded Best Pianist at the Joseph Suder Lieder Competition. In 2014, she completed her studies at Saar University of Music in Germany, earning a Master’s degree in Chamber Music under Professor Tatevik Mokatsian.

From 2014 to 2022, Svitlana worked as an Official Staff Pianist at The Yehudi Menuhin School. In 2022, she began working at the Royal College of Music as an accompanist in the String Department.