Biographies

Lisa Nelsen

Lisa Nelsen was born and raised on a pig farm in Western Canada and enjoys an international career as a soloist, chamber musician and educator.

A past member of the Britten Pears Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestras of Holland and Canada, she began her professional career playing in the flute sections of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. Her recitals with piano have taken her to concert halls in Norway, Finland, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Holland, Ireland, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, as well as throughout Canada and the United States. She frequently appears at festivals and concert series in Britain, and gave her London début recital at the South Bank. She is Solo Flute of the contemporary music group Continuum Ensemble in London, England and is a founding member of the New London Chamber Ensemble. She has given a one-woman recital at the Swaledale Festival, NorthYorkshire and was also a special guest artist at the first International Flute Festival in Örebro, Sweden. She has had several pieces written for her by composers such as Kenneth Hesketh, Roderick Watkins and Paul Max Edlin, recording them for BBC Radio. In February 2006 Lisa toured across the Canadian Prairies as a Powell/Sonaré Flutes’ Artist.

Lisa was appointed Specialist Flute Teacher for Wells Cathedral School in 2001 and is a visiting instructor at several colleges in Britain. She coaches the wind players at the National Youth Chamber Orchestra and the Main Orchestra of the National Children’s Orchestra. In the summer of 2002, Lisa was appointed as Co-Artistic Director of the Harrogate International Flute Summer School along with Paul Edmund-Davies. From 1997-2001 Lisa was a member of the British Flute Society council. She also collaborated with Liz Goodwin on the highly successful “Project: Flutewise” bringing a variety of flute workshops to young players aged 7 to 17.

While working as a consultant for Boosey and Hawkes for 3 years Lisa gave masterclasses all over Europe, including the Norwegian State Conservatoire in Oslo, the Bruckner Academy in Linz, Austria, and the Dublin Conservatoire. She has given a recital and masterclass at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, and classes at the Boston Conservatory and Boston University in the United States. Several of her upcoming appearances are made possible with the support of Verne Q Powell and Sonaré Flutes.

Melanie Ragge

Melanie Ragge has two principal musical passions - chamber music and education. Although originally a Medic at King’s College, Cambridge, she graduated with a MPhil in musicology, writing her final thesis on Stravinsky’s early neoclassicism. She went on to study performance as a Leverhulme Fellow at the Royal College of Music, where she was awarded exhibitions both as a pianist and oboist; she studied piano with Phyllis Sellick, oboe and cor anglais with Michael Winfield, and contemporary oboe with Edwin Roxburgh. She also subsequently took lessons from the German oboist Thomas Indermuhle.

Whilst at the RCM, she performed a duo with Ann Martin-Davis, with a special interest in performing and commissioning new works. They were awarded a residency at the Banff International Performing Arts Centre in Canada where they premièred a new commission by Sam King in the Banff International Festival. In 1998 they recorded Lutoslawski’s Epitaph for ASV, as part of Ann Martn-Davis’ CD of his piano chamber music: “everything is exquisitely and cleanly played” … BBC Music Magazine. This, and a new commission In memoriam Lutoslawski by the young Polish composer Maciej Zielinski they subsequently performed in the Lutoslawski memorial concert.

As well as being a founder member of the nlce, Melanie has performed as a concerto soloist both in England and abroad and freelances as an orchestral player. She has also worked as a recitalist with the harpsichordist Ariadne Blyth and countertenor Stephen Taylor, and performed with the Campbell Wind Ensemble, with whom she premièred Julian Philips’ Piano and Wind Sextet. As a tutor and/or artist in residence at the Swaledale and Aberystwyth Festivals she has performed the Mozart Quartet with the Dante and Schidlof string quartets. Her solo and chamber performances have taken her to a wide variety of diverse destinations, including Malta, Sweden and the Pacific Rim, as well as more ‘conventional’ venues such as St John’s, Smith Square and Wigmore Hall.

Melanie’s teaching and coaching consumes the remainder of her professional life; she teaches the oboists at the Purcell School of Music and is a Professor of Oboe at the Royal Academy of Music. She has given a number of masterclasses, coaches for Chamber Music International, is an adjudicator and also an Associate Director and tutor for the National Youth Chamber Orchestra.

Neyire Ashworth

After her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, at the Rotterdam Conservatoire in The Netherlands and with David Weber in New York, Neyire was a BBC Young Musician prize-winner and won Countess of Munster, Ian Fleming, Martin Musical Trust and Craxton Awards.

Her London debut was as part of the prestigious Park Lane Group’s series at the Purcell Room, South Bank. Neyire has appeared on BBC radio 3, Classic fM and at concert halls world-wide. Guest principal appearances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra and Raymond Gubbay’s London Concert Orchestra, as well as touring with Academy of St Martin in the Fields have been highlights of her orchestral work to date. She was also principal clarinet with the Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela and frequently appeared as soloist. In October 2007 Neyire will give the London premiere of the concerto for clarinet, film, computers and percussion by the acclaimed film composer Brian Lock.

As chamber musician, Neyire was a founder member of the Britten-Pears Ensemble. They performed throughout Great Britain and in the USA, and recorded works by Jolivet and Frank Martin for ASV. The Ensemble performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and appeared at the Wigmore Hall. With the clarinet quartet, No Strings Attached, she worked on various large-scale community projects, including several exciting initiatives at Wormwood Scrubs prison. Winners of the Royal Overseas League Chamber Music prize and prize winners in the Gaudeamus International Contemporary Music competition, they toured frequently and made several successful recordings. Her duo with Johan Eriksson A&E - clarinet and percussion has toured both North Yorkshire and North Sweden. A&E has commissioned several new works, and has a first recording in preparation.

Neyire’s passion for theatre has led her to work as composer, music director and actress for theatre companies including the Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, A&BC Theatre Company, The Globe, Opera Circus, Bamboozle Theatre Company and Clod Ensemble. Recent appearances as actress/musician include “Tale That Wags the Dog” at the Theatre Royal Plymouth, Lyric Hammersmith London, Zeitgeist Festival, Los Angeles, USA, and ‘‘Little Red Riding Hood’’ by Georges Aperghis for the Almeida Opera Festival.

Neyire has had many new works written for her and is developing techniques and repertoire for a new instrumental theatre. Stenclmusic (music by Rachel Stott) is her first instrumental theatre piece; it won awards from both the European Association for Jewish Culture and the Jewish Music Institute London. Stenclmusic premiered in London to critical acclaim and will be showing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2007.

Neyire is currently professor of clarinet at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.

Stephen Stirling

Stephen Stirling is a renowned horn soloist. Since studying at the Royal Northern College of Music with Ifor James and later with Julian Baker, he has worked mostly in the rather rarefied world of chamber music. He enjoys an enormously varied career travelling all over the world, particularly relishing playing in unusual and far flung places.

He has broadcast concertos on BBCTV and Radio 3, and appeared with orchestras such as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Orchestra of St Johns, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with Richard Hickox, Sir Neville Marriner, Heinz Holliger, Ivan Fischer and Douglas Boyd. His recordings of the complete Mozart Horn Concertos with the City of London Sinfonia are frequently broadcast on Classic fM. He has also recorded the virtuosic Double Horn Concertos by Vivaldi. Gary Carpenter’s marvellous new Horn Concerto was written for him and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and given its world and broadcast premiere in April 2005. Other recent first performances have included solo works by Martin Butler and Stephen Dodgson.

Stephen has a world-wide reputation as a chamber musician being in constant demand at festivals in the UK and abroad. He is a member of Endymion Ensemble, The Fibonacci Sequence, Capricorn, Arpege and the New London Chamber Ensemble. His many critically acclaimed CDs include the first recordings with Endymion, of York Bowen’s horn sonata and his beautiful Quintet for Horn and Strings, and Mozart’s entire output for wind ensemble with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. CDs of horn quintets by Stanford and Dunhill have just been released. His second recording of the Brahms Horn Trio, with the Florestan Trio, was nominated for a ‘Gramophone’ award and in the USA, ‘Fanfare’ described it as the equal of any recording whether modern or ‘Golden Age’. Spring 2007 will see the release by Deux Elles of ‘Horn’ - rare works of chamber music featuring the horn, with the Fibonacci Sequence.

He is a professor at Trinity College of Music, London, on the faculty of the Yellowbarn Summer School in Vermont and a seasoned participant at the Dartington International Summer School.
More info at www.stephenstirling.com

Meyrick Alexander

Meyrick first heard Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring when he was seven years old; on the strength of this he decided to learn the bassoon and attended one of Archie Camden’s lecture recitals where he was advised to begin when he reached eleven. He duly received his first bassoon lesson on his eleventh birthday, won a Music Scholarship to Clifton College, progressed to the National Youth Orchestra and was awarded a Scholarship to the Royal College of Music where he studied with Geoffrey Gambold. Meyrick Alexander joined the Royal Ballet Orchestra in 1971, moving to the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra as Second Bassoon two years later where he formed the Aquilo Wind Quintet. He then spent a year in his first principal position with the Northern Sinfonia before being appointed to his present position as Principal Bassoon of the Philharmonia Orchestra at the end of 1980.

Since then he has appeared as soloist many times, including performances of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with Ashkenazy at the Swansea Festival and at the Royal Festival Hall with Sinopoli, with whom he has recorded Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Deutsche Grammaphon with Philharmonia colleagues. He has also recorded this work with the London Chamber Orchestra, performed it at La Scala, Milan, and is featured on their Vivaldi disc in the B-flat Bassoon Concerto RV502.

Meyrick Alexander is committed to new music: he gave the first British performance of Michael Daugherty’s Dead Elvis, in costume, premièred his Concerto for Four Bassoons Hell’s Angels, commissioned by the Philharmonia and performed in Bedford, Leicester and London and is the dedicatee of Guy Woolfenden’s Bassoon Concerto written in 2000.

Meyrick Alexander plays a Moosmann model 222 bassoon, but also plays period instruments in the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and is a member of the Classical Wind Quintet. He is in demand as a guest artist and has played with nearly every British symphony and chamber orchestra, the Nash, Albion and Capricorn ensembles, London Winds and the London Sinfonietta. He has been Professor of Bassoon at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama since 1984, at the Royal Northern College of Music since 2000 and regularly gives masterclasses and recitals at all the other major colleges of music in Britain.