Festival Performers
2024 Festival Archive
Jamie Akers
Critically acclaimed musician Jamie Akers was hailed as ‘the great Scottish guitarist’ by Classical Guitar Magazine and, in a review from Gramophone, his playing was described as, "containing all the warmth, colour and expressive richness one could hope for."
As a soloist, Jamie has performed throughout Europe, the U.S.A, the Middle East and Australia. Widely active as a chamber musician, he has accompanied leading singers and vocal groups, including Dame Emma Kirkby, Miriam Allan, I Fagiolini, Ex Cathedra, Stile Antico, Solomon’s Knot, the Dunedin Consort and the Marian Consort, and instrumental groups such as Fretwork, Chelys Viol Consort and The Rose Consort of Viols.
As a continuo player, he has worked for many major opera companies, including English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Glynebourne and Innsbruck Festival Opera and orchestras and ensembles including The Scottish, Irish and English Chamber Orchestras, Northern Sinfonia, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The Ulster Orchestra, and The Essen Philharmonie.
Jamie has performed on numerous recordings, film soundtracks, theatrical stages, and broadcast for the BBC, France Musique and RTE Lyric, Ireland. He lectures on early plucked strings at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
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Nicola Barbagli
Nicola Barbagli studied modern oboe in Italy at Scuola di Musica di Fiesole and the Scala Theatre Academy. He then graduated from Geneva Haute Ecole de Musique with Maurice Bourgue. He moved to the UK to play in the Southbank Sinfonia and after that decided to study historical oboes with Katharina Sprekelsen at the Royal Academy of Music.
Nicola is the principal oboe of La Barocca - Milano and BachWerkeVokal – Salzburg. He also performs regularly with the Orchestra of Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort, La Lira di Orfeo, Early Opera Company, Classical Opera Company, Academy of Ancient Music, Boxwood and Brass, Il Groviglio, among others.
Nicola runs Istante Collective and Baroquestock (baroquestock.com), a new music festival in Hampstead (London) that combines imaginative early music performances with homemade cooked food. Nicola has created an open collaboration between the festival and the Italian Cultural Institute to create italian sounds in london (italiansounds.london). At the moment he is recording all L.A.Lebrun oboe concerti with Istante Collective for Novantiqua records.
When Nicola is not at 415 or 430hz he can usually be found baking cakes and playing accordion.
Elitsa Bogdanova
Bulgarian violist Elitsa Bogdanova completed her studies at the National Music School in Sofia and later at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she developed a keen interest for historical performance.
Elitsa is a member of the award-winning Consone Quartet, BBC New Generation Artists (2019-2021) and Borletti Buitoni Trust Fellowship recipients. The quartet is currently in the middle of recording a complete cycle of Felix Mendelssohn’s string quartets with the Scottish label, Linn Records.
Elitsa enjoys taking part in a variety of projects with chamber groups, orchestras and period instrument ensembles around the UK and abroad. She plays principal viola in La Serenissima and has guest led the viola sections of the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Florilegium, Irish Baroque Orchestra, La Nuova Musica, 12 Ensemble, United Strings of Europe and the London Contemporary Orchestra. She has also worked with the London Handel Orchestra, The English Concert, Solomon’s Knot, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and the Aurora Orchestra.
As a session musician, Elitsa has recorded for pop artists, television, advertisements and films, including 'Suspiria' by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, 'Midsommer' by Bobby Krlic, The Matrix Resurrections by Lana Wachowski and Armando Iannucci's David Copperfield.
Zoë Brookshaw
Originally from Nottingham, soprano Zoë Brookshaw was a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, an apprentice in the Monteverdi Choir, and recently a Rising Star of the Enlightenment with the OAE for their 2019-2021 season.
Now an established soloist, her notable performances include Bach Matthew Passion (Sir John Eliot Gardiner), Händel's Israel in Egypt at the Royal Albert Hall BBC Proms (William Christie and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment), as Aci in Händel's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with OAE, Mozart Exultate Jubilate with Noord Nederlands Orkest and Jos van Veldhoven, Bach John Passion at Wigmore Hall and Bach Fest Leipzig (Solomon's Knot), Monteverdi Lamento Della Ninfa at Carnegie Hall (Gallicantus).
Opera credits include Opéra National de Lyon's production of Purcell's Indian Queen with Emmanuelle Haim, 'Eurydice' and 'La Musica' in Monteverdi's Orfeo for Robert Hollingworth, Rameau's Pygmalion with John Butt and Dunedin Consort, soloist in Purcell's Fairy Queen, and King Arthur for Paul McCreesh. Other productions with Sir John Eliot Gardiner include Bizet's Carmen, Weber's Le Freyschuetz, Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, and Gluck's Orphée at Covent Garden.
zoebrookshaw.com
Matthew Brown
British harpsichordist, early organist, and director Matthew Brown is in demand as a continuo player, recitalist, repetiteur, vocal coach and conductor across London and beyond. A graduate of the University of Bristol (BA with First Class Honours) and Guildhall School of Music and Drama (MPerf with Distinction), Matthew has studied under various leading harpsichordists such as Carole Cerasi, James Johnstone, and Colin Booth.
Matthew has collaborated with groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, Genesis Sixteen, Cambridge Handel Opera Company, Ryedale Festival Opera, Hampstead Garden Opera, Istante Collective, Victoria Baroque Players, and Southern Sinfonia, under a variety of conductors including David Hill MBE, Eamonn Dougan, Julian Perkins, and Simon Chalk, at number of major venues and festivals.
Matthew is the founder and Artistic Director of The Queenes Chappell, an historically informed solo-voice consort based in London. As a solo harpsichordist, Matthew was the First Prize winner at the 2023 Lewis Memorial Prize competition, and has appeared across the UK and in Canada as a recitalist on the harpsichord and the organ. He combines his performing career with his work as Organist and Director of Music at St Mary’s Stoke D’Abernon, where he presides over the baroque Frobenius organ and a flourishing music department.
Eva Caballero
Originally from Barcelona, Spain, Eva Caballero was awarded a scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music, London. She discovered the baroque flute and continued her studies on historical flutes at the Royal Academy of Music.
Her work involves performing in London-based ensembles and a variety of orchestras, including Solomon’s Knot, The Mozartists, The Sixteen, Gabrieli Consort and Players, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, among others. She has also given recitals at the Handel Hendrix House, Raynham Hall, the Wallace Collection and St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
She has collaborated on improvisation and modern dance and theatre techniques in the Tête à Tête Opera Festival and IV Festiwal Atelier in PoznaÅ„, Poland. She has also participated recordings, including An English Coronation and Elijah with Gabrieli Consort and Players, St Matthew Passion with English Baroque Soloists, Il Sogno di Scipione and Grabmusik, Bastien und Bastienne with The Mozartartists and Complete Solo Soprano Cantatas, JS Bach with Armonico Consort.
Eva has won numerous awards as a chamber music performer in the UK and Spain, including XIII Paper de Música de Capellades, Premi Ciutat Manresa, IX Pòdiums de St. Joan de Vilatorrada and the Anglo-Czech Trust Competition.
Toby Carr
Lutenist and guitarist Toby Carr studied the classical guitar at Trinity Laban, he was introduced to historical plucked instruments, an interest he pursued during a postgraduate degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 2016 and welcomed back as a professor in 2021.
Now in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and continuo player, his playing has been described as 'sensuous and vivid' (The Guardian), 'Eloquent' (BBC Music Magazine) and 'Mesmerising' (Opera Today).
Toby has performed with most of the principal period instrument ensembles in the UK and beyond, as well as with many symphony orchestras, opera companies and ballet companies.
Carina Drury
Carina has held a lifelong love for music. She enjoys a busy career as a chamber musician and continuo player and her playing has been described by BBC Radio 3 as 'singing across the centuries.'
She was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied with Philip Sheppard and Jonathan Manson, and later with Richard Lester at the Guildhall, supported by the THCW trust.
Carina toured as principal cello with the European Union Baroque Orchestra in 2010, and has since performed as guest principal with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, La Serenissima, Gabrieli Players, Oxford Bach Soloists and Camerata Ireland.
As a soloist she has performed a C.P.E. Bach Cello Concerto at the National Concert Hall in Dublin with the Orchestra of St. Cecilia (2013) and Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto with Vlad Waltham and La Serenissima at St Martin in the Fields (2022, 2023).
A chamber musician at heart, Carina is a founding member of Ensemble Augelletti, the BBC New Generation Baroque Ensemble 2023-2025. Carina has also hugely enjoyed delving into Geminiani, Bocchi and O'Carolan’s music for her first solo album 'Irlandiani,' released to critical acclaim in November 2020, thanks to Arts Council of England funding. Carina was awarded an Arts Council Ireland Emerging Artist Grant in 2021 in order to perform her album programme live in her hometown of Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, and she has toured the album programme in London, Dublin and Cork with her ensemble Irlandiani.
In 2022, Carina and her ensemble Irlandiani were awarded a Continuo Foundation grant in order to record a new album programme, Smock Alley, which was released in 2023.
When not playing the cello, Carina can be found baking cakes at home which she brings to rehearsals to share with her colleagues!
Rachel Ambrose Evans
Rachel Ambrose Evans grew up in a musical family, and first began singing in the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge. During her degree she developed a particular interest in early music, also playing the baroque violin.
An experienced consort singer, Rachel regularly appears with many of the finest vocal ensembles in the UK and Europe, including Dunedin Consort, I Fagiolini, Polyphony, Vox Luminis, The Tallis Scholars and Stile Antico.
Highlights from solo appearances include: Orgando in Handel Amadigi Di Gaula with English Concert directed by Kristen Bezuidenhout, Euridice/Musica in Monteverdi L’Orfeo with I Fagiolini in the Trondheim Barokkfest and the London Festival of Baroque Music, Handel Joshua with Brook Street Band and Stephen Layton and Vivaldi Gloria with Southbank Sinfonia.
Rachel is a member of the Choir of the London Oratory, the Temple Singers, and is singing teacher to the newly formed St Margaret’s Choristers at Westminster Abbey.
Kinga Gáborjáni
Kinga Gáborjáni, originally from Hungary, studied baroque cello with Jennifer Ward Clarke and viola da gamba with Richard Campbell at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She gained her postgraduate degree at with distinction in 2007. In addition to cello and viola da gamba, she plays the lirone, an instrument with 14 strings employed by Monteverdi and other 17th century composers in their operatic works.
Kinga performs with many UK period instrument orchestras with whom she has toured all over the world. Since 2008, she has played with the English Baroque Soloists under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, for whom she is currently a principal cellist and gamba player. She was co-principal cellist for the English Touring Opera for eight years and has also been guest principal cellist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the English Concert. She is a member of several chamber music groups, including the viol consort Newe Vialles.
Kinga also works as a mindset coach, helping fellow musicians cope with performance anxiety as well as non-performers develop in confidence.
Edward Grint
Current and future engagements of British bass-baritone Edward Grint include Bach concerts with Rene Jacobs, in Billy Budd, Enescu Festival Bucharest, King Arthur with the Early Opera Company, Royal Odes Banquet Celeste, his debut with The English Concert and Harry Bickett at the Wigmore Hall, tours with Les Arts Florissants, concerts with Collegium Vocale Gent, and performances of Handel's Messiah for the London Handel Festival and with The King's Consort.
Past concert projects have included concerts with Les Arts Florissants on tour, Acis and Galatea and Acteon with the Early Opera Company, Messiah with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and The Hanover Band, a programme of Baroque music at the Wigmore Hall for La Nuova Musica, Missa Solemnis with the Oxford Bach Choir, St John Passion with Les Musiciens du Louvre in Gdansk and Aix-en-Provence.
Important past operatic engagements have included Was frag ich nach der Welt, a staged production of Bach Cantatas for the Schwetzingen Winter Festival,in Acis and Galatea Opéra de Avignon, as 'Arcas' in Iphigenie en Aulide Theater an der Wien, as 'Adonis' in Venus and Adonis, as 'Aeneas' in Dido and Aeneas Innsbruck Festival, as Peter in The Last Supper BBC Symphony Orchestra, and also in the Tongyeong Festival, in Neige by Catherine Kontz Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, and in Faramondo by Handel Göttingen, Händel Festival.
edwardgrint.com
Thomas Herford
Thomas Herford (tenor) was educated at Trinity College Cambridge and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Thomas is a core member of Solomon’s Knot, a Baroque ensemble that is well-known for its memorized chamber performances, with highlights including European tours of both the St Matthew and St John Passions (Evangelist), Cantatas at Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms), and a UK tour of the B Minor Mass. Thomas appears with the group on their four CDs to date - 'Magnificat' Christmas in Leipzig, Bach Motets, Telemann Donnerode and Lost Majesty - as well as on DVD as the Cortegiano in L'Ospedale.
Other solo work has included appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, English Baroque Soloists, English Chamber Orchestra, La Nuova Musica and Academy of Ancient Music. His work in opera has focused on the roles of Handel, Mozart and Rossini, and he has appeared with Garsington Opera and Opera North, among others. With the Britten Sinfonia, Thomas performed Britten's Curlew River at the Lincoln Centre.
A member of the Monteverdi Choir since 2016, Thomas has taken part in numerous landmark projects, from a European tour of the St Matthew Passion in 2016 (recorded for SDG) to a series of ambitious semi-stagings of Berlioz's operas. Recent concerts include the B minor Mass at Carnegie Hall and Brahms' Requiem with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. Thomas also has a close relationship with I Fagiolini, appearing on their albums Amuse Bouche and Missa Tu Es Petrus.
thomasherford.co.uk
Jacob Heringman
American-born lutenist Jacob Heringman studied at the Royal College of Music in London. Settling in England in 1987, he quickly established himself as a much sought-after ensemble player, performing around the world. Jacob has made many CD and radio recordings of medieval and renaissance music with leading English ensembles, including The Rose Consort of Viols, Fretwork, Alamire, Musicians of the Globe, The King's Singers, The New London Consort, Virelai, and the Dufay Collective.
As a continuo player, Jacob Heringman has performed and recorded with The King's Consort, The English Baroque Soloists, The Parley of Instruments and The Taverner Consort, among many others. As a soloist, Jacob's recordings, include the first lute CD ever to be devoted to the music of Josquin Des Prez. As an accompanist, Jacob Heringman has performed and recorded lute songs with Emma Kirkby, John Potter, Michael Chance, and Barbara Bonney, among others.
In 1990, Jacob founded the group Virelai. His lute playing can also be heard on the soundtracks of many films, including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Kingdom of Heaven, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, and The Hobbit.
Jacob has taught at many universities and conservatoires, including the American Lute Society's courses in Vancouver, Cleveland and Amherst, the UK Lute Society, Cambridge Early Music Summer Schools, and the Historically Informed Summer School.
heringman.com and also Pellingmans' Saraband
Gabriella Jones
Violinist Gabi Jones enjoys a diverse career performing as a soloist and chamber musician in the UK and internationally. As both a modern player and a historical specialist, she plays and records regularly with the Academy of Ancient Music, The English Concert, Aurora Orchestra, Solomon’s Knot and Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique.
Gabi is the co-founder of Liturina, a dynamic chamber ensemble specialising in the trio sonata repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as genre-crossover and contemporary music. She is a sought-after leader with ensembles including Istante, Opera Settecento, Wond’rous Machine and the Waterperry Opera Festival Orchestra, and has been a guest leader for Florilegium. In addition, Gabi has directed projects at the Royal College of Music, Chetham’s, and the Baroquestock Festival. She has also spoken as a panellist for events with AAM, RCM and Waterperry Opera Festival on a range of musical topics.
Gabi attended Chetham's School of Music before graduating from Trinity College Cambridge in 2016. She went on to pursue a masters at the Royal College of Music, and was awarded the prestigious Kit and Constant Lambert Fellowship while she gained her Artist Diploma in historical performance.
A passionate music educator, Gabi teaches violin and modern and historical chamber music at Chetham's. She has given masterclasses in the UK and abroad, including competition moderation and adjudication. She is a yeoman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
Jean Kelly
Jean Kelly hails from an Irish family of several generations of professional musicians. Jean won a scholarship to study harp at the Royal College of Music, London. She is in great demand as a versatile harpist, with an eclectic career ranging from Early Music to Contemporary Classical and Folk Music.
She has recorded three CDs with the Locrian Ensemble, including Handel Harp Concerto and Mozart Flute and harp Concerto. A CD of Chamber Music by Richard Arnell was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine. She has also recorded for the Guild and Stockfisch labels.
Jean performs on commercial film and TV soundtracks, for composers such as Jonny Greenwood, Max Richter and Dario Marianelli. She played solo harp on Michael Kiwanuka’s Mercury Prize winning album.
Jean regularly guests with The Telling and The Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments, playing medieval, gothic, celtic and triple harps. She loves the freedom of playing and improvising with these groups, extending beyond the printed notes, and drawing on her past musical influences.
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Nicholas Mulroy
Born in Liverpool, Nicholas read Languages at Cambridge University, and vocal studies at RAM. He has sung Monteverdi at New York's Carnegie Hall, Rameau at the Opéra de Paris, and Bach's Evangelist roles in venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall (for the BBC Proms), and Leipzig's Thomaskirche.
Nicholas has enjoyed prolonged collaborations with some of the world's leading conductors and ensembles, and has appeared frequently at the Wigmore Hall, in a wide range of repertoire, including Purcell, Schubert, Bach's Passions (directing the St Matthew Passion), and Britten's complete Canticles on the centenary of the composer's birth. He has recorded widely, including a Gramophone Award-winning Messiah, several versions of Monteverdi's Vespers, and Piazzolla's extraordinary tango opera María de Buenos Aires. Alongside Elizabeth Kenny and Toby Carr, he recorded a programme of Latin American and European Baroque songs earlier in the year.
He is Associate Director of the Dunedin Consort, a Musician in Residence at Girton College, Cambridge, and a Visiting Professor at RAM. Away from musical life, he follows Liverpool FC and enjoys writing about art.
Faye Newton
Faye Newton enjoys a diverse repertoire spanning some six centuries and embracing many aspects of the solo voice. For over a decade she performed as a soloist with the New London Consort, most notably at the BBC Proms and in Jonathan Miller's productions of Monteverdi's Orfeo, and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.
Faye can often be heard performing solo-voice Bach Cantatas with the Feinstein Ensemble at St Martin in the Fields and Kings Place, London. In 2009, Faye made her solo debut at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, performing Handel's Ode for St Cecilia's Day with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and was subsequently invited to perform in Koopman's Féstival Itinéraire Baroque en Périgord with the Netherlands-based ensemble Caecila-Concert.
Faye has a particular love for the music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries and performs this repertoire regularly with the Gonzaga Band. Their recent, critically acclaimed, recordings include Alla Milanese (2023), Venice 1629 (2018) and Amadio Freddi: Vespers (2019) on the Resonus Classics label. Faye also features on Andrew Parrott's recording of Monteverdi's Orfeo, singing the role of Euridice. Other notable recordings include The Language of Love, songs of the troubadours and trouvères by Duo Trobairitz, released on Hyperion and Twenty waies upon the bels with Pellingmans’ Saraband.
Clare Norburn
Clare Norburn is a singer, playwright and producer. She read music at Leeds University and singing at London College of Music. As a playwright, she has developed a new genre of concertplays including Beethoven’s Quartet Journey (six concertplays to accompany a full cycle of his string quartets) for the Dante Quartet, Purcell, the Musical (2018) for Ceruleo, and with director Nicholas Renton, Breaking the Rules (2015) for the Marian Consort, Creating Carmen (2019) for CarmenCo, and Galileo (2020) for the Monteverdi String Band and the Marian Consort. Her Empowered Women Trilogy was filmed during lockdown, with one of the concertplays being selected by The Guardian as an online classical highlight, alongside the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals. More recently she has produced Love in the Lockdown (2021), an online play with music in nine episodes starring Alec Newman and Rachael Stirling, and I, Spie (2021) starring Dominic Marsh, Danny Webb and Alice Imelda. Her productions have toured UK festivals and venues including LSO St Luke’s, Bridgewater Hall and St John’s Smith Square.
Clare has sung as a soloist with many medieval ensembles, including her own group The Telling and Vox Animae, with whom she has recorded and performed medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen’s music drama Ordo Virtutum. She has performed at The Purcell Room, Bridgewater Hall and at leading festivals including Spitalfields Music, Brighton Festival, Newbury Spring Festival and Buxton International Festival.
Together with Deborah Roberts, Clare co-founded Brighton Early Music Festival. She has trained and mentored young ensembles/companies for RADA, Handel House, the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She also works as a freelance arts fundraiser.
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Susanna Pell
Susanna studied music at the University of York and then went on to study the viol with Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. That was a very long time ago!
She joined the innovative medieval ensemble The Dufay Collective and became a full-time member of Fretwork. With these groups, she toured the USA, Japan, South America, Australia, the Middle East and India as well as the UK, and made many recordings for radio and award-winning discs.
She performed on the soundtrack of several films, among them Zeffirelli's Hamlet, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Da Vinci Code, and appears on Kate Bush's 2005 release Aerial. Her freelance music making saw her regularly appearing with The Purcell Quartet, Phantasm, The New London Consort, The Taverner Consort, The King's Consort, The Sixteen, The Parley of Instruments and Opera Restor'd.
In a desire to reduce her carbon footprint and to spend more time at home, she is now focusing her energy on performing and teaching, as well as performing in her duo with Jacob Heringman, Pellingmans' Saraband, and The Herschel Players, with flautist Graham O'Sullivan, violinist Huw Daniel and harpsichordist, Mie Hayashi, whilst occasionally revisiting her former life as a guest with Fretwork.
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susannapell.co.uk and also Pellingmans' Saraband
Beatrice Scaldini
Beatrice Scaldini is a violinist who specialises in historical performance, and has performed and recorded worldwide with many renowned ensembles in this field. She has appeared as concertmaster with Europa Galante (F. Biondi) at the Bucarest, Warsaw, St. Florian and Valtice Festivals, as well as Concerto Italiano (R. Alessandrini) at La Scala Theatre, Milan. She is a member of Sir John Eliot Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, and regularly serves as principal second violin with Oxford Baroque Soloists and the Hanover Band.
Other recent appearances include Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Accademia Bizantina (Ottavio Dantone), Les Musiciens du Prince (G. Capuano), La Risonanza (F. Bonizzoni), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Beatrice was educated at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Florence and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with Lydia Mordkovich, Mateja Marinkovic and Walter Reiter, and is now a dedicated teacher of both modern and baroque violin.
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Rachel Stott
Rachel’s career has been divided between performing wet ink manuscripts on modern instruments, interpreting faded manuscripts on period instruments, and creating entirely new manuscripts for both kinds of instruments. She is a long-standing member of the Bach Players and the Revolutionary Drawing Room, lively spontaneous ensembles which eshew the hazards of a sedentary lifestyle by performing on two feet. She also performs music from 18th-21st centuries with Trio Incantati, (recorder, viola d'amore and viola da gamba,) and early 19th century repertoire with Trio Notturno (flute, viola, guitar).
Rachel's compositions include four string quartets, song cycles to poems by Thomas Campion and Stevie Smith, and an opera for children, The Cuckoo Tree, based on the novel by Joan Aiken. Less conventional works include a tone poem, Odysseus in Ogygia, for six viola d'amore, Dark Arts in a Stony Place, an evocation of occult practices in a 16th century convent, for four trumpet marines, and Several World, a fugal piece for a hundred gleaming saxophones.
Aside from writing and performing music, Rachel enjoys walking, reading, baking and acquiring new skills. She has studied Ancient Greek in an adult education class and learned to pluck a goose in Western Canada.
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