Colin Alexander was educated at the Royal Grammar School of Guildford and the Purcell School, winning both the Tim Stevenson Prize for Composition and the Orchestral Composition Prize. Enjoying many years of chamber music training at Pro Corda, he went on to perform at the RNCM Quartet Festival to critical acclaim, and at the Wigmore Hall whilst winning the National Youth String Quartet Competition. Colin then studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, achieving his BMus in both ‘Cello, with Oleg Kogan, and Composition, with Richard Baker. Subsequently Colin has completed a Masters in Composition at the Royal College of Music on a full scholarship whilst establishing himself as a freelance cellist. He regularly records for advertisements and television and has appeared on BBC Radio 3, ITV and Channel Four. Colin has also worked as Principal ‘Cello for the London Telefilmonic Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of India. Chamber music collaborations have included performances with David Campbell, Alexander Baillie and Dmitri Sitkovetsky. Having recently finished a commission for the Mercury Quartet, Colin has also written pieces for the London Contemporary Orchestra and the Marryat Players String Orchestra. Recent appearances with the cello include Brahms’ Double Concerto at St James’ Piccadilly, projects with The London Contemporary Orchestra Soloists, and performances with the Gagliano Ensemble and BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Jordan Bergmans was born in France in 1989 and started studying the viola at the age of six at the Conservatoire of Tours with Gilles Deliege. After receiving her diplomas with distinction in viola, theory and chamber music she went on to study at the Conservatoire of Aulnay-sous-Bois and privately with Mathieu Herzog (violist of the Quatuor Ebene). After her Baccaaureate she moved to London and has completed an undergraduate course at the Royal College of Music studying with Yuri Zhislin.
Jordan has participated in many masterclasses (with David Fruehwirth, Antoine Tamestit, Atar Arad, Lawrence Power,…) and performed in in the UK as well as in France, Austria, Italy, Germany and Canada. She has also recorded for many new composers as well as with Natalia Gutmann.
Jordan enjoys a busy freelance schedule in London performing in both chamber ensembles and orchestras.
Robin Bigwood was brought up near Bristol in the UK and studied harpsichord and piano at the Royal College of Music. He won the Broadwood Harpsichord Competition in 1995. Nowadays he performs regularly as a soloist and continuo player with Feinstein Ensemble and Passacaglia, and also plays with London Baroque, Florilegium, The King’s Consort, The Sixteen and many other ensembles. Outside of performing, Robin has taught harpsichord at Centre for Young Musicians in London, Trinity College of Music and The Yehudi Menuhin School. He runs The Workshop Series, an acclaimed series of concerts in Lewes, East Sussex, at the workshop of master harpsichord maker and restorer Malcolm Rose. He is also passionate about recording technology, established the label Barn Cottage Records, and is a regular author for the recording magazine Sound on Sound.
Bulgarian violist Elitsa Bogdanova completed her Bachelor’s degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and her Master’s degree in 2012, studying with Rachel Roberts, after which she was selected to be a fellow of the strings department at Guildhall for the 2012/2013 academic year. Еlitsa has taken part in master classes and festivals in Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, Italy, UK as a soloist and a chamber musician; and has received lessons from Yuriy Bashmet, Tatjana Masurenko, the Takacs, Belcea, Chilingirian and Endellion string quartets, and others.
Since 2012 Elitsa has been performing with the baroque ensembles La Serenissima and the London Handel Orchestra, including engagements at the Royal Albert Hall, Canterbury Cathedral, Cadogan Hall, and New Year’s Eve and Easter concerts at Wigmore Hall.
Elitsa was selected to become a member of the young musicians’ schemes of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for 2012/2013. She has taken part in a number of educational projects through LSO Discovery and she recently obtained a Leverhulme trust fellowship, allowing her to train as a chamber music coach with Pro Corda, in Leiston, from 2013 to 2015.
Leslie Boulin Raulet studied at the Dole Conservatoire, the Conservatoire National de Region de Boulogne in Paris, Lawrence University of Appleton in Wisconsin (USA) with Stephane Tran Ngoc and obtained her Bachelor of Music at the Royal College of Music in Yuri Zhislin’s class and a Masters Artist Degree [both degrees with distinction] at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Jacqueline Ross. She now studies with Gordan Nikolic. From an early age Leslie has won prizes in several competitions including the Bellan competition, UFAM competition, Les Royaumes de la Musique , the Vatelot competition, the Stulberg International Competition in the USA, the Marlow Festival Competition in England and was recently semi-finalist in the Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy.
Leslie has performed concertos with the Manchester Camerata (Gabor Takac), the Southbank Sinfonia (Richard Bonynge), the Orpheus Sinfonia, and with the Euterpe Franche-Comte Orchestra. She has also performed as a recitalist at Saint James Piccadilly, Saint Martin-in-the- Fields, the National Gallery, has extensive engagements in France, and has recently performed in King’s Place with Matthew Barley in his Xtreme Cello season. Leslie has founded the Brillig Ensemble, an unconducted ensemble of 32 musicians which she leads from the violin.
Corentin Chassard was born in Brittany and studied in St Malo, Paris and London, with renowned musicians such as Florian Lauridon, Aldo Ripoche, Xavier Gagnepain, Henri Demarquette, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Alexander Boyarsky and Jérôme Pernoo. He has appeared in Master-Classes with Christopher Henkel, Francois Ragot in Spain and Bernard Greenhouse in England.
Currently a London-based cellist and chamber-musician, he is a member of the award- winning Mercury Quartet which performs classic works of the 20th century, alongside improvisations and live compositions, new commissions and unknown masterpieces. He is also a member of Partial Gathering with composer Ruaidhri Mannion, a member of The Octandre Ensemble, and he is the official cellist of the renowned Japanese violinist, Taro Hakase, in Europe.
Corentin has performed across France, Belgium, England, Ireland, Switzerland, Spain and China, in the Royal Festival Hall, the Cadogan Hall, Saint Martins in the Fields, the Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building, and has appeared at festivals including Festival de Lacoste (2006), Festival des Abbayes (2006), The Chelsea Schubert Festival (2008), The Rosemary Branch Festival (2009) and the Dartington International Summer School (2010).
Corentin’s passion for teaching led him to be nominated as a cello, piano, and chamber music teacher at the Conservatoire de Dinard in France, from 2003 to 2005. Since 2008 Corentin teaches cello, piano and chamber music at MusicAll, London.
https://corentinchassard.e-monsite.com
Jeremy Hughes was born in the U.K. but brought up in Canada and went to university in the U.S. before returning in 1991, eventually to settle in East Anglia.
He is now music director of the Lavenham Sinfonia, and he founded and directs the Laurentian Choir and Ensemble.
Jeremy has performed concertos by Haydn, Brahms, and Saint-Saëns with the Colchester Orchestra and Lavenham Sinfonia. As a baroque cellist, he is a member of the Delightful Companions as well as the lead cellist of the Suffolk Baroque Players.
Orlando Jopling studied the cello with William Pleeth, Alexander Baillie and Raphael Wallfisch, and has recorded all six Bach suites for solo cello, among other discs. He gives regular recitals of solo Bach as part of his ‘Cello Pilgrimage’, concerto performances with the Orchestra of the Swan and others, and plays as principal cello with many orchestras as well as in the cello section of the LSO, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Amongst his many activities Orlando is also a conductor and has worked with the English Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, the Schönbrunn Orchestra in Vienna, and Cyprus Symphony Orchestra, as well as many amateur orchestras in the UK.
https://www.orlandojopling.blogspot.co.uk/
Adrian Knott was born in 1943 and studied music at the universities of Durham, Cambridge, and Indiana, USA. After teaching music for ten years in comprehensive schools in the UK, he went to Brussels in 1976 to a post of music teacher in the European School. There he founded orchestras, a band, choirs, chamber music groups,produced operettas, and toured with the school Symphony Orchestra to 21 countries. As oboist Adrian gave regular recitals during his early years in Brussels and from 1987 to 1994 he conducted the Chapelle des Minimes, a semi-professional choir and orchestra, in more than 40 Bach cantatas. In 2003 he was awarded an MBE for his services to music.
Amici is an a cappella choir formed by Adrian in 2006. They have performed extensively across East Anglia and have also been on concert tours to France, Belgium, and Germany over the past few years. Their repertoire is broadly based, stretching from the late-medieval period to the twenty-first century, and encompassing a wide variety of styles, but there is a particular focus on the madrigals and sacred music of the Renaissance.
Jennifer Morsches resides in London and enjoys an active freelance career as chamber musician, continuo cellist and orchestral player in the UK, on the Continent and in her native USA. She is the principal cellist of Florilegium, with whom she records for Channel Classics Records, and performs around the globe. She is a member of the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, working regularly with eminent artists such as Sir Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Sir Roger Norrington, Frans Brüggen, David Zinman and Philippe Herreweghe. Among numerous invitations to be guest principal cellist include opera productions at Het Nederlands Opera, Chicago Opera Theater and tours and recordings with the Royal Flemish Philharmonic. Jennifer graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, First Group Scholar from Smith College with degrees in Music History and German Literature, and was awarded the Ernst Wallfisch Prize in Music. Subsequently she received her Master’s and Doctorate in Cello Performance as a scholarship student of Timothy Eddy at the Mannes College of Music and SUNY at Stony Brook in New York. Recipient of the CD Jackson Prize for outstanding merit and contribution at Tanglewood, she was featured on Wynton Marsalis’s educational music videos with Yo-Yo Ma. She has given world premieres of chamber music by David Matthews, Michael Wolpe and Ben Zion Orgad. She is a recipient of the Finzi Travel Scholarship (2012) and of a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2011) for furthering research on the violoncello piccolo.
https://www.jennifermorsches.com
Pamela Munks graduated from Trinity College of Music, and began a very busy, varied and fulfilling professional career. Her concert and recording career has included playing with many of the leading orchestras of the day including the Philharmonia; BBC Symphony Orchestra and fourteen years as a principal player with Australian Opera.
During her time in Sydney, she became interested in performing baroque music on ‘authentic’ period instruments, and was co-founder of Sydney Baroque, the Baroque Guild and Sydney Harpsichord Ensemble.
On her return to the United Kingdom Pam focused her career on playing with London based period instrument orchestras including the Age of Enlightenment and the Hanover Band, and now plays with The Delightful Companions, and leads Suffolk Baroque Players.
Aisha Orazbayeva studied in Kazakhstan, Italy and the United Kingdom where she completed her Masters of Music Degree at the Royal Academy of Music with professor Clio Gould. She regularly performs around the world including in France, Central Asia and Hong Kong, at festivals and venues such as Santander, Aldeburgh, Klangspuren, and the Wigmore Hall.
Aisha has collaborated with composers including Johannes Maria Staud, Pierre Boulez, Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Zinovieff with whom she recently collaborated on a concerto for violin and electronics entitled ‘OUR’. She has led orchestras around Europe under conductors such as Sir Colin Davies, Franck Ollu and Zoltan Koscic. Aisha has performed with the London Sinfonietta, toured Europe with the Ensemble Modern and regularly performs with the Ossian Ensemble, Psappha, Kammerklang and Azalea.
In 2012 Aisha came to Thornham direct from the Latitude Festival where she was performing for BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction.
https://aishaorazbayeva.com
Elizabeth Page for many years on the professorial staff at the Royal College of Music teaching recorder and coaching Renaissance and Baroque ensembles. Based in Suffolk for over twelve years Liz has founded the Delightful Companions which have given many concerts throughout East Suffolk. She was the driving force behind the formation of the Suffolk Baroque Players who have performed with many choirs in the area. Liz is also the orchestral manager for the Aldeburgh Music Club, the Phoenix Singers, the Bury Bach Choir and Prometheus Orchestra. For her leisure Liz sings in three choirs.
Hun Ouk Park was born in South Korea 1989. He started playing the piano at the age of six and the violin at the age of seven. When he was eight years old he went over to Russia to study at the Saint-Petersburg Special Music School of N.A Rimsky-Korsakov with Professor Vladimir Ovcharek.
In 2001 he came to England to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Simon Fisher, and Maciej Rakowski. During his stay at the Menuhin school he took part in many concerts, for example playing at the Mozart festival in Turkey, at the Royal Albert Hall and the Wigmore hall.
In 2007 he went on to study at the Royal College of Music with a full scholarship and is now a pupil of Itzhak Rashokovsky.
Currently he is actively participating in solo, chamber music, and orchestral concerts and he recently gave a performance of the Schnittke concerto grosso no.1 with the RCM orchestra conducted by renowned conductor Vladimir Jurowski at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Mariam Reutschi was born in 1980 in Baden, Switzerland, and studied in London with professors Philip Dukes and Andriy Viytovych. Upon graduation, Mariam has been playing with various UK orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia and the Royal Opera House Orchestra at Covent Garden, under the batons of Riccardo Muti, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph von Dohnanyi to name a few. She also works with the London Chamber Orchestra, Guildford Philharmonic, LMA Orchestra, and Orchestra de Cadaques. Sought after as a soloist and chamber musician in London and further afield, Mariam has performed in festivals across Europe including Champéry, Bergerac, Presteigne, and in Kharkov, Valeriy Sokolov’s Chamber Music Festival.
Mariam is thankful to the Dénéréaz Foundation for their support in acquiring her modern instrument by French maker Jean-Louis Prochasson.
Daryl Runswick was educated at Cambridge University and Ronnie Scott’s Club. He spent his early career writing pop songs and jazz (he toured for 10 years with Cleo Laine and John Dankworth); more recently concert pieces. This duality has permeated his career as an improvising pianist and bassplayer, singer with Electric Phoenix, arranger (notably for The King’s Singers), composer of film and TV music (My Family and Other Animals) record producer and broadcaster. Daryl was for 10 years Head of the Composition Faculty at Trinity College of Music in London, where he established the annual composition prize bearing his name. After retiring in 2003 he embarked on a series of solo performances integrating every strand of his multifarious talents. He is married to Alison Truefitt and they spend every summer in the hills above Florence, playing and writing. www.darylrunswick.net
Alison Truefitt writes: I was a journalist for ten years (Times, Guardian, BBC), before a sudden switch to study singing/piano at the Royal Academy of Music. Then 20+ years professional singing: recitals for the BBC, Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, music clubs, festivals, choral societies, minor soloist in Proms and with English National Opera. Also taught singing at Rose Bruford College, the Actors’ Centre and Royal Shakespeare Company, accompanied singers and instrumentalists, and edited/proofread books for publishers like Faber, Macmillan and Virago for a bit of extra money. I also got deeply, madly involved in two community projects: – in 1972 a Free School for street kids in Islington – not the Tory party version – and, in the 1980s, a village resurrection project near the lovely remote mid-Wales bolt-hole I was lucky enough to inherit from my father. The project became UK Village of the Year in 1998 and they gave me an MBE. Prince Charles asked me to join his rural development council. Thought I was more or less retired now, but maybe I’m wrong again….
Taro Takeuchi was born in Kyoto, Japan. After completing his degrees in law and music in Tokyo he came to England to study lute and early guitar with Nigel North at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Since leaving college he has been in great demand as soloist and ensemble player and has toured most European countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, USA and Japan. As a continuo player he has worked with The Parley of Instruments, The English concert, The Royal Opera House, The Orchestra of Age of Enlightenment, Berliner Philharmonic, as well as Sir Simon Rattle, Rachel Podger and Nigel Kennedy. He has made numerous recordings for Deux-Elles, EMI, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, BBC and others. Taro Takeuchi plays all types of lutes and early guitars, and specializes particularly in double strung early guitars, including 5-course Baroque guitar, English guitar (guittar) and 6-course Spanish guitar. His solo recordings on early guitars Folias!, The Century That Shaped the Guitar and Affectuoso were received with critical acclaim and high praise.
https://www.crane.gr.jp/~tarolute/english.htm
David Wright was born in Bethnal Green in the East End of London on the 21st March 1985 and received no musical training as a child. His interest in music began after the death of his father, when he was nine, through subsequent involvement in the local church. It was there that he discovered the piano and organ and taught himself to play ‘by ear’, nurturing a love of the music of Bach and Mozart. At the age of sixteen he had his first piano lesson and learned to read music, later going on to study harpsichord at Trinity College of Music, where he won the Ella Kidney prize for early music, and graduated with honours.
David later graduated with distinction from the Royal College of Music in 2003, where for two consecutive years he won the Richard the Third and Century Fund Prizes. In 2003 he also won first prize in the prestigious Broadwood Harpsichord Competition, an international event held at London’s Fenton House, where he became artist in residence. As a soloist and accompanist David works regularly with leading ensembles including English Touring Opera and the English Bach Festival where David was assistant musical director to Jean-Claude Malgoire in a production of Rameau’s Platée at the Megaron in Athens. He is also engaged regularly among the artists at the Dartington International Summer School. In 2011 David became the harpsichordist of the avant-garde baroque group Red Priest.