Biography
Image courtesy of J.N. Gourley
Ruth Corney is a young English flautist who began playing the flute aged eight in Cornwall. With the marvellous tuition she received from Janet Elston (Cornwall County Music service) she blossomed as a young player, holding the positions of lead first flute in the Triggshire Wind Orchestra and first flute in the Cornwall County Youth Wind Orchestra. As a soloist in her early years she achieved notoriety and success with performances in local concerts and gala events and in competitions, including the North Devon Music Festival held at Bideford. Her relationship with the South West is still strong and she frequently returns for solo and festival orchestra recitals.
While in Cornwall, and when not playing the flute, Ruth was studying the piano with local church organists Roy Dinshaw, and, later, Michael Richardson. With their expert guidance and encouragement she sailed through the ABRSM grades, reaching grade eight and passing with distinction when she was fifteen. Having taken a year off for her flute-playing to catch up (and to make sure she passed some more conventional subjects at GCSE), she welcomed the return to the study of the piano, even more so when she was accepted to study with David Robinson (ex-Professor at the Royal Academy of Music). David’s knowledge and expertise enabled Ruth to develop her technical ability while expanding her repertory to include many exciting, demanding and well-known works, including those of Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Debussy.
Ruth left Cornwall in 2005 to experience greater culture and develop herself as a performer at the University of Southampton. During her first year of study she studied piano and flute jointly under the watchful eyes of David Owen Norris and Sylvia Bowden on the former, and Charlotte Bettle on the latter. Although equally successful on both instruments at the end of year performances Ruth made the difficult decision to focus her university studies on the flute, while opting to maintain the piano’s prominence in her life aside from this. Her decision resulted in first-class performance marks at the end of her undergraduate degree. Wishing to build on the expert knowledge she had gained from her study with Charlotte, Ruth applied and was accepted for a Masters of Music in Performance programme also at the university: an intensive one-year course designed to further skills as a performer. As part of this Ruth played to a near-capacity audience at the Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton as part of their Professional Monday Lunchtime Concert Series, and again as part of their Professional Evening Concert Series later in the year, with the help of insightful and sensitive pianist Robert Thompson. Her performances sparked interest from several composers, including Hossein Hadisi and John Habron (Composer-in-Residence, Handel House Museum), and she frequently works with them in their quest to expand the repertoire for both the solo instrument and the instrument as part of an ensemble. Ruth was also fortunate to be awarded a full scholarship from the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths to study at the Oxford Flute Summer School 2009, where she received the expert guidance of Michael Cox (RAM), Kate Hill (RAM), Peter Lloyd (RNCM) and Patricia Morris (RAM). She has also studied with Judith Hall (Birmingham Conservatoire) and Ian Clarke (Guildhall School of Music and Drama).
Ruth now resides in London where she performs regularly, and teaches and accompanies in addition to this. As a flautist her special area of interest is contemporary repertoire, where her flare for exceedingly difficult technical matters and extended techniques shines through. Her love for melody and understanding of harmony, however, means that she is as comfortable playing something by Bach or Telemann as she is something by Takemitsu or Mcguire (see link for example recital programmes/repertoire lists). Having developed an interest for little-known English flute works in her third year of university, Ruth has now branched out further, and her current repertoire includes works by Robert Muczynski, Elliot Carter, Frank Martin and Sergey Prokofiev.