Maria Miguel Pires & Mar Umbert Kimura

Maria Miguel Pires was born in Porto in 2006 and is a young soprano. She is studying singing at the Royal College of Music (BMus) in London under Miranda Wright and is an ABRSM Scholar with support from the John and Sylvia Daughtry Scholarship. She began her training at the Porto Conservatory of Music, in an integrated program. She was the winner of the CMP Internal Singing Competition (2019, 2021–2024), the Gaia National Competition (2022), the National Singing Competition of the National Conservatories (2022–2024), and the Caneres International Competition (Vienna, 2023). In 2024, she received the CMP/Porto Commercial Association Award, performing in recital at the Arab Hall of the Palácio da Bolsa. In 2025, she was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary, having been awarded the Collingwood Finalists' Prize.

Mar Umbert Kimura is a Spanish-Japanese collaborative pianist based in London. She is studying for a master's degree in Collaborative Piano Performance at the Royal College of Music, under the guidance of Simon Lepper and Roger Vignoles. She is an RCM scholarship holder, with her studies funded by the Evelyn Tarrant Scholarship. Before moving to London, she completed her BA and MSt in Music at the University of Oxford (Somerville College), where she received both instrumental and academic distinctions.