Biography
Having begun learning the harp at the age of nine, eclectic harpist Alice Roberts soon developed a sincere and unwavering love for the instrument. Receiving a music scholarship at her high school and studying on Saturdays as part of the Royal Northern College of Music’s junior department, Alice went on to complete her undergraduate degree on the highly competitive and prestigious Manchester ‘Joint Course’. The course involves studying for a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Manchester and a graduateship at the Royal Northern College of Music simultaneously. She graduated in 2018 with first class honours in music from the University of Manchester, and the following year she was awarded an upper classification as a Graduate of the RNCM, the highest class of qualification offered.
During her time as a student at Manchester University, Alice was awarded the Procter-Gregg both in 2016 and 2018, an award offered annually to the student with the highest mark for performance. In correspondence, at the RNCM she won the Graucob award for further study during her time at the junior department, and in 2020 became the first harpist to win the RNCM Gold Medal competition - the highest prize offered for performance at the conservatoire.
Alice remains deeply passionate about exploring alternative styles on the harp, and in 2018 she travelled to Switzerland to study under widely acclaimed jazz harpist Park Stickney. Since then, she has collaborated with a large range of musicians including the folk duo ‘Good Habits’, celebrated genre-bending vocalist and violinist Alice Zawadski, and the highly talented jazz-saxophonist Jasmine Myra, for whom she remains a fixture of the band. With Jasmine, she has gone on through various tours to play at many prestigious venues and festivals, including We Out Here festival, Love Supreme festival and multiple performances at Hamburg’s iconic Elbphilharmonie concert hall.
In 2021, she joined the band of the leading spiritual jazz artist and producer Matthew Halsall, with whom she records and performs regularly across the UK and internationally. In 2023, she played with Matthew as part of his anticipated album launch tour ‘An Ever Changing View’, which afforded her the opportunity to play at some of the most famous venues in Europe, including Manchester’s New Century Hall, Zurich’s Moods jazz club, Studio 4 inside Brussels’ Flagey building, and London’s Barbican Hall as well as its historic Royal Albert Hall.
As well as her jazz career, Alice performs regularly with orchestras and ensembles across the North West as a professional classically-trained harpist. Such orchestras have included the Manchester Concert Orchestra, the Halle Youth Orchestra, and Stockport and Wilmslow Symphony Orchestras as well as the Manchester Video Game Orchestra and the Northern Film Orchestra, which records orchestral film music written by composers from all over the world. Over 2022 and 2023, she was part of the session orchestra Orca 22, which worked with fabled Manchester rock band ‘James’ to record their 17th studio album ‘Be Opened By The Wonderful’. The album was launched with a tour in April 2023 which culminated in performances in concert halls all across the UK, as well as the main stage of Latitude Festival, and a performance in Athens’ incredible open-air venue on the slopes of the Acropolis, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.
As an individual act, she has built a multifaceted and exciting career as a soloist. Through her exploration of the harp in folk, jazz and pop contexts, she has become well respected as a versatile harpist, performing at festivals such as Manchester’s International Festival and Stockport’s Moovin Festival, as well as a prolific recording artist through her home studio. Since 2020, she has recorded for over one hundred clients, ranging from Grammy-winning film composers to a plethora of independent artists and music producers. She is also a founding member of the Northern-based harp duo ‘Rascallity’ with harpist Kathryn Mason, which explores unusual repertoire for two harps, including jazz, latin, folk and contemporary styles, often through their own arrangements and compositions.