About Jessica Gale
My journey as a musician and teacher
Jessica developed a passion for music at a much later age than usual, having not taken any formal piano lessons until the age of fifteen at secondary school. She strived to reach her potential and completed all ABRSM Grades 1-8 with her teacher Julia Hartmann in just four years of attending piano lessons at Hindhead Music Centre, enabling her to follow her career path with her love of music into college and university.
Jessica studied Music at the University of Surrey from 2010 and graduated with a BMus (Hons) in July 2013. She had piano lessons with Margaret Roberts and took part in performances while at university which were held at the Performing Arts Centre and Guildford Cathedral. In 2011 and 2012, she attended master classes with internationally acclaimed pianists James Lisney and Simon Nicholls at Hindhead Music Centre of which the first class focussed on works by Brahms and Liszt and the second class of works by Schubert and Poluenc. During Jessica’s final year at university she carried out a detailed study on Clara Schumann as a virtuoso female concert pianist in the nineteenth century with the supervision of Jeremey Barham. She also studied Baroque Fugue Analysis with Dimitris Exarchos which specifically focussed on keyboard music by J.S Bach.
In December 2014, Jessica achieved her ABRSM Piano Performance Diploma followed by Grade 8 Music Theory in November 2015. She took part in the Basingstoke Music Festival and won the Valerie Taylor Challenge Trophy in 2015.
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She published her first CD with a selection of works by J. S. Bach, Beethoven and Robert Schumann in February 2015 and another CD with works by Scarlatti, Haydn, Rachmaninov, Brahms and Chopin in August 2017.
In 2017, Jessica was awarded the Doreen Ayliffe Challenge cup for coming first in the Recital Class at the Chichester Music Festival along with The Borough of Reigate and Banstead Arts Council Shield for the Redhill and Reigate Piano Concerto Competition. She also achieved her LRSM Diploma in Piano Performance in July 2017 and she was awarded the Kathleen Chuter Challenge Cup for coming first in her class at Chichester Music Festival in March 2018.
Jessica attended a 'Piano Retreat' organised by Christina Cooper at Finchcocks in Kent in April 2019 which entailed masterclasses with pianist Petros Moschos. In May 2019, she was awarded the Senior Special Trophy for the most outstanding senior performance of the Aldershot and Farnborough Music Festival and 1st Place in the Chopin Class.
In 2020, Jessica attended a Rachmaninoff Masterclass with concert pianist Warren Mailley-Smith at Finchcocks in Kent. During November 2021 and March 2023, Jessica and Eric performed at some music festivals. They played duets by Brahms, Mozart and Tchaikovsky (arr. Rachmaninoff) and received Distinction(+). They will be performing in a duet masterclass weekend this year at Finchcocks. Eric will also be accompanying Jessica as a singer.
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Jessica has recently been enjoying teaching singing to some pupils and is preparing to take the new ARSM diploma in Singing for Musical Theatre in 2024 with Eric as her accompanist. She performs locally and teaches in a secondary school as well as privately, offering lessons in piano and music theory to all ages.