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We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate
St James’s Piccadilly, The Sixteen and the Genesis Foundation have joined forces in a five-year partnership celebrating the power of music to inspire, connect and bring people together. Discover extraordinary performances, new music and opportunities for the next generation of musicians.
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St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
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St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
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Monday 9 November 1.10pm
Tunbridge Wells International Competition presents Samantha Rowe -flute. Wind & Brass Section Winner 2026.
Online streaming
This concert will be streamed live on our YouTube channel at 1:10pm.
Support our Creative Programme
Whether £5 or any amount you’re able to give. Donations can be made in cash in the basket on your way out, or by tap donation at the machines at our exits. Your generosity helps support our cultural events and charitable services. Thank you.
Free admission | Donations welcome
Programme
tbc
Artist Bio
Born and raised on a family-run dairy farm in Cornwall, Samantha Rowe is a professional flautist, piccolo player, and soprano who trained at the Royal College of Music (MPerf Distinction) and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (BMus First-Class Honours). Throughout her flute studies, she was fortunate to train under the mentorship of Sarah Newbold, Philippa Davies, Ian Clarke, Sue Thomas, Emer McDonough and Simon Channing, and she studied piccolo with Christopher Green, Kathleen Stevenson and Dimis Demitriades. Samantha has worked with some of the UK’s leading conductors and musicians including Adam Hickox, Vasily Petrenko, Ed Gardener, Michael Collins, Roberto González-Monjas, Nicholas Collon and Dr. Pearl Shangkuan.
Samantha has been delighted to appear with orchestras including the Glyndebourne Sinfonia, Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, St. Endellion Festival Orchestra (Easter and Summer), Brandenburg Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Sinfoni Kernow and Scarborough Spa Orchestra. Competition successes include first prize in the Orchestral Artistry Award with the Liverpool Flute Academy (August 2023), second prize in the Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra Young Soloist Competition (February 2024), semi-finalist in the Royal Over-Seas League Woodwind Competition (February 2026*), finalist in the Royal College of Music Concerto Competition (July 2025), finalist in the Guildhall Needlemaker’s Woodwind Prize (March 2023) and Highly Commended in the British Flute Societies Solo Young Artist Competition (March 2023).
As a chamber musician Samantha has performed at LSO St. Luke’s with the Haizea Ensemble, with the Tunnell Trust on the Isle of Coll, at the international ‘Music and AI Conference’ with Rowland Sutherland, at the Klosters Music Festival in Switzerland and continues to travel around the UK with the Endeli5 Wind Quintet and the Haizea Ensemble delivering outreach in schools and care homes. A passionate soloist, Samantha performed her first solo flute concerto in April 2024 with the Plymouth Symphony Orchestra and continues to hold recitals in London and the South West throughout the year.
Grateful to also work as a professional singer, Samantha holds two church chorister positions and regularly features as soloist with ensembles including the Alyth Choral Society and East Cornwall Bach Choir. In demand as a lyric soprano, operatic roles to-date include Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro, Mozart), Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck), Carolina (Il matrimonio segreto, Cimarosa) and Nannetta (Falstaff, Verdi). Samantha has performed abroad in Italy, France, Switzerland and Holland and has featured as soprano soloist in Fauré’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and the UK premiere of Dan Forrest’s Creation with the South West Philharmonia. Vocal competition success includes the London Song Festival’s Schubert Song Prize (finalist, December 2025) and the Chris Treglown Singing Competition (April 2025). She made her solo debut at Birmingham Symphony Hall in 2022 and continues to develop a broad career in opera, recital, and oratorio under the tutorship of Alison Wells.
Samantha has worked with the Hush Collective performing their immersive show ‘In the Dark’ since January 2025, and she is also a member of The Christmas Orchestra. As a singer Samantha has worked with the Ritz Quartet, Eton Lower Chapel Choir, Enchord ensemble, the Seraphim Quartet and Young Guns Ltd. Aside from her classical spheres, Samantha is the enthusiastic lead singer of the up-and-coming function band ‘Good Vibes’, and she takes a keen interest in performing and teaching musical theatre and jazz vocals.
During her time on the Pit Perfect Scheme at Glyndebourne, Samantha was generously supported by the Richard Seguin Foundation. She was also previously a Royal College of Music Award Holder, and her studies were generously supported by the Charlotte Fraser Foundation, The Radford Charitable Trust, the Lord Lieutenants ‘Young and Talented Cornwall’ and The Kathleen Trust. None of this would have been possible without the mentorship of her teachers, both at music college and in her younger years, who still inspire Samantha every day to work hard and find joy in what the gift of music can bring us. The wonderful opportunities that Samantha has been so grateful to partake in has shaped her life enormously, and she can’t wait to see what the future holds.
*ongoing at time of writing
Presented in association with Tunbridge Wells International Music Competition
