Hilary Stavros Ives

A versatile musician, Hilary Stavros Ives is equally at home in an orchestral hall, an opera or musical pit, and performing on stage. Originally from Utah, she received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Iowa in 2011 and finished a Master of Music in Orchestral Performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales, UK in 2017. Before moving to the UK, she worked extensively with the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, Utah as a musician, collaborative artist, and on-stage performer. Shows included: Les Miserables (2012) and South Pacific (2015), as well as incidental music for Twelfth Night and Sherlock Holmes (2014). Her talents were most on display during the summer season's The Greenshow, a free nightly pre-show with live music, dancing, and storytelling. As part of the Royal Welsh College's Orchestral Performance course, she regularly participated in side-by-side schemes with the Welsh National Opera Orchestra and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. During her time with the College, she performed with RWCMD Symphony Orchestra at St David's Hall in Cardiff, including Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in November 2015, as principal oboe in Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade in June 2016, Dvořák's Eighth Symphony in November 2016 and Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 in June 2017. She also worked on the College's March 2016 production of Mozart's famous Marriage of Figaro, leading the woodwind section as principal oboe. During the summer of 2016, she and many other students collaborated with the Welsh National Youth Opera to perform in Sir Andrew Maxwell Davies' Kommillitonnen! (Young Blood!) in Barry. In a joint effort with the College, Mid-Wales Opera, and the Academy of Ancient Music, she and several other students collaborated for a tour of Handel's Semele throughout Wales in the spring of 2017. She also performed regularly with the Royal Welsh College's Chamber Orchestra on both oboe and cor anglais. Her quintet, Melys Winds, also had the privilege of performing Peter Reynolds' Silver Apples of the Moon at his memorial concert in March 2017. They also performed at an recital celebrating Welsh chamber music at the College in June 2017, a 2017 University of South Wales graduation ceremony, and a January 2018 concert for the Lampeter (Wales) Music Club. Hilary currently freelances and teaches in South Wales, and has played with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, as well as several amateur groups throughout the region, including St Woolos Symphony, Gwent Chamber Orchestra, Bro Cor Ogwr, City of Cardiff Symphony Orchestra, and Newport Orchestra.