Venetia Iga with John Haslam (Piccadilly Piano Festival)

Part of Piccadilly Piano Festival at St James's.

Doors 12:50pm, Recital 1:10pm-1:50pm (no interval). Please pay what you can afford. Seating is unallocated - arrive early for the best seat.

Born in London and raised in the Medway towns, Venetia Iga is a multi-genre freelance singer. As a soloist, she predominantly focuses on jazz and soul, but often returns to choral singing, which she has a great love for. Venetia held an Alto choral scholarship at Keble College whilst studying Geography at the University of Oxford, singing for several BBC recordings and international tours. She was awarded one of the inaugural singing scholarships at St James’s Church, Piccadilly in Autumn 2021.

Accompanying Venetia on piano is John Haslam. John’s musicianship could be described as versatile, playing both the piano and the organ; a highlight of John’s organ playing was his performance of the Saint Saens organ Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2022. He frequently performs at St. James’s Church Piccadilly on both piano and organ (and occasionally trumpet if you’re lucky).

He studied jazz piano at Junior Guildhall since the Autumn of 2018, and on leaving in the summer of 2022 he was awarded the Junior Guildhall Jazz Prize. He frequently performs with his jazz trio, a highlight of which was being the opening and closing act for In Conversation with Huw Edwards: Stephen Fry & Emerald Fennell at St. James’s Church in Piccadilly. He is an avid fan of musical theatre, and has taken part in numerous National Youth Music Theatre courses, playing keyboards for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Beautiful Game (The Other Palace Theatre, 2018) Alex Parker’s new musical Henrietta (MCT Theatre at Alleyn’s School, 2021) and he was recently the Assistant Musical Director for Ragtime (MCT Theatre at Alleyn’s School, 2022). He is an avid composer and arranger, and has done so many times at Junior Guildhall, and during the 2020 lockdown his arrangement of the jazz standard Strasbourg St. Denis was recorded remotely by the Junior Guildhall Jazz Choir and Big Band. He has recently been teaching on the Musical Theatre BA course at Urdang, City University of London, which has provided him with yet another valuable skill set to take into the future as he prepares to study music at university.

Venetia Iga

John Haslam, pianist

Host or Publisher St James's Church, Piccadilly