Oliver Wass

Oliver Wass, an award-winning soloist and chamber musician, as well as Professor of Harp at London’s Royal College of Music, is
renowned for playing with “verve and polish” (The Times).

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. In May 2016, he became the first harpist ever to win the Guildhall Gold Medal —the Guildhall’s most prestigious prize.

Wass has performed every major harp concerto, including William Alwyn’s Lyra Angelica with the Philharmonia Orchestra; Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto in C major with The Mozartists and Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane with 12 Ensemble at Wigmore Hall; and he has directed the Handel Harp Concerto at London’s Barbican Hall.

He plays both modern and early harps, and has performed the Handel Harp Concerto with the English Concert at Wigmore Hall on the triple harp, as well as touring to Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, and the Salzburg Mozarteum.

His flute-viola-harp trio, The Pelléas Ensemble, won the Royal Philarmonic Society Henderson Award and the Elias Fawcett Award for Outstanding Chamber Ensemble at the Royal Overseas League Competition. He has also won both the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition.

Wass holds a First Class master’s 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 Honors degree in chemistry. He spent his teenage years making fireworks in his parents basement. Remarkably, he says, he still has all his fingers.