Biography
Job Title: Senior Lecturer
Courses Taught: BA (Hons) Music (Classical), Percussion and Timpani, Reflective Practice
Specialisms: Percussion, Contemporary Music
As a percussion soloist, Delia reached the televised Category Finals of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2008 and 2010. She subsequently won both the Concerto and Gold Medal Competitions - making her Wigmore Hall debut - whilst studying at the RNCM. In 2016, Delia performed Avner Dorman's prolific percussion concerto Frozen in Time as in the Krakow Last Night of the Proms, later touring the work extensively across Germany with the Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie.
In 2021 she joins both the BBC Singers as a Guest Artist for their BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall and Maddy Prior MBE (lead singer of Steeleye Span) and The Carnival Band for their UK-wide tour. Delia is Artistic Director of the newly launched ConunDrums: a "counter-concert" series embedded in conversation; the debut concert "AlgoRhythms" explores the impact of technology in our lives, premiering as part of the Sage Gateshead Artist in Residence Programme.
Delia is the co-founder of both the Aurora Percussion Duo and the world music collective Kabantu. Both ensembles have won the coveted £10,000 Royal Over-Seas League Competition, given TED-Talks and broadcast multiple times on BBC Radio 3. Performance highlights include the BBC Proms, BBC Free Thinking Festival and Cambridge Folk Festival and venues such as the Bridgewater Hall, Sage Gateshead, Cadogan Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre) and St Martin-in-the-Fields.
The Aurora Percussion Duo have enjoyed multiple tours of China including Beijing's Forbidden City Concert Hall and National Centre for the Performing Arts; 2020 saw them headline the RNCM Day of Percussion and they tour Australia in 2022. In 2019 Kabantu enjoyed collaborations with Sinfonia Cymru, the BBC Singers and a tour of Switzerland; 2021 highlights include collaborating with the Manchester Camerata, headlining Manchester Folk Festival and performing at Shrewsbury Folk Festival.
Delia has performed with the contemporary classical ensembles including The London Sinfonietta, Almost Credible Music, Dark Inventions and House of Bedlam and also worked as an Extra with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. She has also performed with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and Sinfonia Cymru. She is currently a tutor for both the National Children’s Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
Quotes
"...percussion from Delia Stevens, whose thoughtful, insistent playing is crucial” - The Guardian
"first-rate musicians..exhilarating..there deserves to be a special mention for percussionist Delia Stevens" - FRoots Magazine
