Tutors

PHILIP MEADEN (DIRECTOR) has been Director of the NLMS for 17 years and he was a founder member of its conducting staff. He has extensive experience as a professional musician, a teacher and an administrator, and he has enjoyed working with adult amateur musicians for over 3 decades In addition to his work with the NLMS, he is Principal of the Leeds College of Music, Patron of the Benslow Musical Instrument Loan Scheme, and a member of the boards of Conservatoires UK, the London Sinfonietta and Mbawula Trust. Previous appointments include Assistant Principal of Trinity College of Music, Chief Executive of the Benslow Music Trust, and Principal of Morley College London. He has received honorary awards from both Trinity College and the Royal Academy of Music for services to music and education .

MICHAEL AXTELL (PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR, SINFONIETTA) was principal flute with the ENO for 18 years, and has played with the Ballet Rambert and the Festival Ballet, (now the English National Ballet). His guest appearances include the Sidney Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Welsh Orchestra, the Northern Symphonia and the San Sebastian Symphony Orchestra. He is woodwind coach for various London boroughs, has tutored the master class at the North Carolina University, and has been tutor at the Orlando Festival, Holland.

RUTH BEEDHAM (SINFONIETTA CELLO) studied at Trinity College of Music with Alison Wells and Natasha Pavlutskaya.  In the final year of her undergraduate course Ruth won the Leonard Smith prize for string duo (with pianist Peter Davies) and gained a scholarship to continue her studies with Natasha on the postgraduate course at Trinity College of Music.  In March 2004 Ruth was guest soloist with Wandsworth Symphony Orchestra.  She now performs regularly in the London area with various orchestras and ensembles and gives recitals with both pianist Marcus Andrews and with ‘Duo Cello’ which she formed with fellow cellist Pippa Rans.  In March 2005 Ruth was principal cellist of Jersey Symphony7 Orchestra.  Ruth also thoroughly enjoys her teaching both at City of London School for boys and at an all girls school in Camberwell.  When she is not madly dashing around the city with her cello Ruth likes to run.  She has taken part in several fun runs in the past year and hopes to complete the London marathon in the near future.

THOMAS COLTMAN (ACCOMPANIST) began making music on the violin, tenor horn, trumpet and ‘cello. He continued his solo studies with Yekaterina Lebedeva, complemented by further studies in chamber music, accompaniment, fortepiano and harpsichord. He graduated with first class honours gaining the Bmus. Award for academic success and the Lawrence Davies memorial Award for the most outstanding pianist. Thomas has performed extensively as a soloist and accompanist in recital for the Royal Family and foreign ambassadors and engagements throughout the U.K. and Europe. He also participated as accompanist in master-classes for Cardiff Singer of the World, chamber soloist in Yehudi Menuh Festival and in 2008 became a Britten-Pears Young Artist. His vocal achievements are equally impressive.

IAN CUTHILL (BASSOON) was a member of the English Chamber Orchestra for over twenty years and still plays with them occasionally.  He has played in all the leading London orchestras and has recorded for films and television. He has worked for the Bournemouth and BBC Scottish Orchestras and Sadlers Wells Opera. He has also played period instruments with various groups including the Ionian Classical Players.  He has taught or coached at the Guildhall School of Music, National Youth Orchestra, Harrogate Wind Course and London Schools Symphony Orchestra.

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JOHN EDNEY (TROMBONE) studied with Geoffrey Lindon at Trinity College of Music where he held a trombone scholarship.  He has been a member of the Royal Opera House Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and London Mozart Players.  He is a member of the Orchestra of St. John’s Smith Square and the City of London Sinfonia.  He coaches Chamber Music as Professor of Trombone at Trinity College.

 

CATHY FOX (SINFONIETTA VIOLIN) studied the violin with Gillian Findlay at Trinity College of Music. Amongst her freelance performing she has worked with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTE Concert Orchestra and the Philharmonia. She is currently enjoying working with The Orchestra of the Swan and has just returned from a UK tour with James. Other tours have included a European tour of ABBA The Show and Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. As a recitalist, she has performed in Southwark and Leicester Cathedrals, St. Martin-In-The-Fields and the Foundling Museum, Russell Square. She has taught at The London Oratory School and tutored on the NLMS music summer school for the last 11 years.

CLEA FRIEND (SO CELLO)

JEAN HORNBUCKLE (CONTRALTO) studied singing at the Royal Academy of Music and gained an M. Mus. from Reading University. She has worked with Scottish Opera, ENO, and with opera companies in France and Holland, and has also sung in recitals and oratorios in Britain and abroad. She has broadcast in opera, with the BBC Singers and other professional choirs. Jean taught singing at the City Literary Institute and is still invited, occasionally, to lead courses on musicianship for singers, or singing master classes. As well as singing she conducts two choirs and is still in charge of booking musicians and actors to work in the Tudor evenings at Hatfield House.gavin

 

JUDITH VAN INGEN (S.O. VIOLIN) studied the violin and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music with Rosemary Rapaport and Sydney Griller. Since leaving the Halle Orchestra she has freelanced with many modern instrument orchestras across the country including English National Ballet, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Concert Orchestra et al. and teaches at The Queen’s School, Chester. Judith also plays with period instrument groups (Baroque and Classical) and manages the 18th Century Concert Orchestra – an orchestra whose members play instruments of the period and wear period costume.

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JOHN JONES (FRENCH HORN) studied primarily in Berlin and at the Guildhall School of Music before embarking on a varied musical career. He was principal with Sadler’s Wells and Welsh National Opera Companies (1966-74) and has worked with many of the country’s leading orchestras and ensembles.  He has been Horn Professor at the Army Junior School of Music, tutors for the NCO and presently teaches at three top independent schools in the West Country.

MICHAEL LAIRD (TRUMPET)

DAVID LEWIS (S.O. LEADER) is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and divides his time between performing and teaching on both modern and period instruments. He has played and recorded with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera and is currently leader of the Reading Symphony Orchestra and co-leader of the English Haydn Symphony Orchestra, as well as a regular player with many other orchestras and ensembles in the UK.  David made his big screen debut leading the orchestra for the film The Madness of King George.

RICHARD LEWIS (TENOR) trained as a singer and teacher at Trinity College of Music, studying there with the baritone John Carol Case. Richard subsequently entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as a post graduate City of London Scholar, to study opera. Richard has had a varied career, singing on television, with Opera for All, the BBC and at the Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace. Dovetailing with singing has been a career in education as a head teacher and inspector, which led to an interest in counselling and to Richard training to be an integrative psychotherapist. Richard now manages the counselling team at Trinity College of Music (where he has a particular interest in performance anxiety), has a private practice, works with young people in schools, teaches counselling in a college, sings and co-conducts two choirs on the Shropshire-Welsh borders.

JENNY MCGHIE (SINFONIETTA VIOLA) studied with Ursula Stedman and Ian Jewel and the Royal Academy of Music, and has since built a successful career in teaching, freelance performance and coaching. She teaches in private schools in East Sussex and is a founder member of the Festival String Quartet and Kenley Clarinet Quintet. Her work has taken her to all the major London orchestral venues, and Jenny also enjoys playing in musical theatre and opera in London and the South East.

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GREGORY MITCHELL (FLUTE) received awards to study with Averil Williams and Peter Lloyd at the GSMD, and Edward Beckett at the National Centre for Orchestral Studies. His performing career has included live and recorded appearances on BBC Radio and Television, West End shows and numerous recital, chamber and concerto engagements. Gregory is a busy freelance orchestral player and has participated in many educational workshops, notably with his flute quartet Tutti Frutti.

MARY MOGIL (SOPRANO) graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she won the British Song Prize. She was Head of Music and Speech and Drama at a Public School and later Director of Music at a Grammar School in London and organised performances for children’s, youth and adult groups, working with both amateur and professional speakers, singers and instrumentalists. She spent over twenty years as singer, teacher and choir conductor in Salzburg, where she directed a variety of choirs ranging from chamber groups to an award-winning choral society. She has lectured at seminars for singers, choral directors and teachers and worked with choirs and dramatic societies in Germany and Switzerland. Mary enjoys singing and teaching classical music and drama, as well as a wide variety of folk, musical, jazz and contemporary vocal and choral music. She is a vocal coach and lecturer for Voice Training, Choral Conducting and Italian, German and French for Singers at Morley College, London. She founded and conducts The Leon Singers, a chamber choir specialising in a cappella music from medieval to modern.

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VIKTOR OBSUST (S.O. DOUBLE BASS) studied at Trinity College of Music and Goldsmiths College, London, having previously attended Bratislava State Conservatoire.  From there he won scholarships to attend many music schools including the Oxford Cello School, where he was head of the double bass course in 1999.  Viktor is principal bass in the Chamber Orchestra, Contemporary Music Group and String Ensembles of Trinity College.  He has gained teaching experience as Assistant Project Leader at the City of Novi Sad Cultural Centre, Leeds 2000, Da Capo Music School and Queen’s Park Community School.

THOMAS RAINER (TRUMPET)

DAVID RIX (CLARINET) studied with John Davies at the Royal Academy of Music.  He has worked with all the major symphony orchestras, most particularly with the BBCSO, and enjoys getting to grips with the E flat clarinet! David has recorded Walton’s Façade and Vivaldi’s Concerto for Clarinets.  He is currently principal clarinet of the City of London Sinfonia and also performs with Michael Nyman: a stimulating and refreshing change from standard classical repertoire.  He is a member of Alleyn’s School visiting staff, and an adjudicator for the National Schools’ Chamber Music Competition.

GAVIN ROBERTS (ACCOMPANIST)

PETER SELWYN (PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR) studied modern languages at Cambridge and piano at RAM. Primarily known as an opera conductor, he has a repertoire of over 100, of which he has conducted around 50, in Germany, where from 1999-2004 he was Head of Music and Kepellmeister at the Staatsheater Nurnburg, for UK companies including Welsh National Opera, Opera North, English Touring Opera and Opera Holland Park and in Australia, Singapore, Hungary and the Czech Republic. As symphonic conductor he has worked with the Wiener Symphoniker, Nurnberger Philharmoniker and the Orchestra dell’ Teatro Comunale di Bologna, as well as with numerous UK orchestras including the City of London Sinfonia and the Southbank Sinfonia. As assistant conductor he worked for three seasons on the millennial Ring Cycle at Bayreuth, at the Aldeburgh and Bregenz Festivals, at Covent Garden, ENO, Glyndebourne and at the Hamburg, Strasbourg and Oslo opera houses. Peter is co-founder and an Artistic Director of the Internationales Kammermmusikfestival Nurnberg for whom he has conducted numerous operas by Benjamin Britten and two world premiers. He is also a Professor at the RCM.

BRENDA STEWART (S.O. VIOLA) has been a member of the Bingham String Quartet since its formation in 1985.  With the quartet she has travelled extensively in this country and abroad, and has been active in education at Radley College, the Benslow Music Trust, and chamber music courses in Shropshire and Norfolk.  Her wide-ranging teaching activities have included long-standing commitments at the Junior Royal Academy, Queenswood School, Radley College and the Mary Ward Centre, London, where she taught adult beginners, coached chamber groups and conducted the string orchestra. She is currently Head of Strings at Culford School.

GILLIAN TARLTON (PRINCIPAL TUTOR LATE LEARNER STRING ENSEMBLE) is a widely experienced teacher and performer.  Since studying at the Royal College of Music, she has played violin with such groups as the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, The London Mozart Players and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, as well as the Bloomsbury and Ashington Quartets.  She teaches both adults and children privately, and as a tutor with organisations such as London’s Centre for Young Musicians, where she has been on the staff for almost sixteen years.

GRAHAM TREW (PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR, CHORAL SINGING FOR PLEASURE) studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, winning the Gold Medal. He has had an extensive international career and nationally has given recitals in the Purcell Room and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Barbican and Wigmore Halls, and the National Theatre.  Graham is best known for his recordings of English Song, the first of which won him the Gramophone Magazine’s Vocal Record of the Year award.   Graham sang as a Gentleman of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal for twenty-seven years.  Her Majesty appointed him a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in the Golden Jubilee Birthday Honours.

NORIKO TSUZAKI (SINFONIETTA VIOLIN)

JOHN WHITE (PRINCIPAL TUTOR SECOND WIND) attended the Royal College of Music as a scholar, studying the oboe with Peter Graeme. After leaving the National Youth Orchesta, he went on to join Sadlers Wells Opera Orchestra, where he became principal oboe for eleven years. On leaving E.N.O John worked with many London orchestras as a freelance oboist, whilst also becoming a peripatetic teacher. This lead to coaching and residential music courses both for children and adults. During the last twenty years he has also been Musical Director of various productions for operatic and musical theatre societies.

LAURENCE WILLIAMS (BARITONE) was born in Staffordshire in 1989. At the age of 8 he gained a scholarship, as a chorister, at Westminster Abbey. There he served for six years with three distinguished choirmasters: Martin Neary, Martin Baker and the present organist, James O’Donnell. His life at Westminster was one of intense musical training, singing daily choral services in the Abbey, taking part in live and recorded broadcasts for radio and television, and travelling around the world with the choir on a series of concert tours. The highlight of this period was performing music for the Queen Mother’s funeral in 2002. In his final year he reached the position of Deputy Head Chorister at the Abbey From there, he was awarded a Music Scholarship to Tonbridge School, Kent. He studies singing as a baritone under Graham Trew and organ under Mark Forkgen. Recently, he was awarded the Organ Scholarship to St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Laurence intends to study music at university.

JAN ZAHOUREK (SINFONIETTA DOUBLE BASS)

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