Staff A-Z

Uchenna Ngwe is an oboist, curator, educator, and researcher. Born in North London, she studied oboe and cor anglais at Trinity College of Music from the Junior Department, through undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Alongside a busy freelance career, her interest in research led to a return to study at Trinity Laban and a PhD titled Re-sounding the African Diaspora: Uncovering Afro-British histories in British classical music through curatorial-activism. Since then, her continued exploration into expanding repertoire through creative practice investigates and highlights the lives and work of historical Black classical musicians in Britain from the perspective of a performer-curator-activist.

After studying music at Oxford University, and jazz at the Guildhall in London, Liam Noble started to build a reputation of note playing with Stan Sulzmann, Anita Wardell, John Stevens and Harry Beckett. His first CD, a solo entitled “Close Your Eyes” was released in 1994, and contained a mix of standards, originals and improvisations. This mixture of approaches has characterized his music ever since.

Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE was born in London of Nigerian and Irish parents. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and with Franco Petracchi in Rome. She is now Principal Bass with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and plays a lot of chamber music with various artists internationally. She is an Honorary Fellow of both Trinity Laban and the Royal Academy of Music. She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2001 and Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2017, both for services to music.

Christopher O’Neal has been established as a leading freelance Principal Oboe for over 25 years. He currently holds Principal Oboe positions in the Orchestra of St Johns, the London Mozart Players and the New Queens Hall Orchestra. Previous positions have included the Mercury Ensemble of Ballet Rambert, Kent Opera under Roger Norrington and Ivan Fischer, and the English Sinfonia with whom he recorded Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Sir Charles Groves. He now appears as guest Principal Oboe in symphony and chamber orchestras all over the country and with many other smaller ensembles such as Endymion, the Composers Ensemble and the Albion Ensemble.

Tim Palmer studied at the Liszt Academy, Budapest, the National Centre for Orchestral Studies, Cambridge University and the Guidhall School of Music and Drama. He is a Senior Teaching Fellow and Head of Music Education at Trinity Laban, where he leads teaching and research into the role of the musician in education settings, and into creative teaching in music in Higher Education. His work crosses traditional boundaries between classroom teaching, instrumental/vocal teaching and workshop leading.

Dr Vanio Papadelli is a movement and theatre artist and educator. Her practice fuses elements from Eastern European Laboratory theatre and dance-theatre; yoga; somatic movement; postmodern dance; Laban/Bartenieff; Contact Improvisation; and experimental theatre. Key inspirations and interests include feminist theories, ecological philosophies, surrealism, ritual and phenomenology of performance.

Sara Louisa Parry studied singing at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Her first professional job was in the cast of Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre, Manchester and toured with the show to Dublin and Edinburgh. She was also a member of the cast in the 10th Anniversary concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1995. .

Nye Parry’s work encompasses sound installation, multimedia, concert works and numerous scores for contemporary dance. He has made sound installations for major museums including the National Maritime Museum, the Science Museum and the British Museum.

Much of his work focuses on musical structures, which can be navigated by the listener. The Exploded Sound, created during a period as research fellow at CRiSAP, University of the Arts, allows visitors to explore the inner structure (harmonics) of sound by walking among 60 small suspended loudspeakers and was premiered in Ljubljana in September 2012. The installation Significant Birds, exploring similar ideas, was created for the exhibition ILLUSION and has been shown in Dublin, San Diego, North Carolina and Kuala Lumpur. As a guest artist at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, has recently been developing this strand of work for multi-speaker concert performance.

Since graduating from Bretton Hall in the late 90s where she trained in Lighting Design, Fay has toured nationally and internationally as production manager for Shobana Jeyasingh, Carol Brown Dances, Edge, and for festivals like Skin Shakers (Southbank) and What Now (ID).

Well known as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher, Natalia has established one of the finest cello classes in Russia. She also taught at the conservatoires in USA, Australia and New Zealand. Since 1999 Natalia lives in London, where she is a Professor of Cello at the Trinity Laban and at the Specialist Purcell School. There are a number of prizewinners of International competitions among her students. Natalia is in constant demand for masterclasses (UK, USA, Australia, Russia, Taiwan, Belgium, Greece, New Zealand). She has been a judge at many international contests, including the Adam cello festival/competition, and the Antonio Janigro Cello Competition.Natalia performs in UK, Russia, Europe, America, Australia and New Zealand and makes recordings on ‘Chandos’ label.

Alex (1990), ”highly innovative…of exceptional creative imagination and musical energy, packed with life force unlike anything else” (BBC Magazine/Ivor Novello British Composer Awards.) is an award-winning composer & jazz-trombonist. His scores are published by Ricordi (Berlin)

As Director of Strategy and Business Operations, Jonathan’s role encompasses and oversees many of the operational functions of Trinity Laban. In addition, he is also the strategic lead for Health and Safety, Data Protection and Safeguarding. Jonathan has worked in the higher education sector for over 30 years and brings a wealth of experience to Trinity Laban. Outside Trinity Laban, Jonathan enjoys life as a semi-professional musician, song writer and record producer.

Jonathan was awarded an MBE in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to Higher Education.

Nic is Head of the String Department at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where he leads one of the most vibrant string departments in Europe. Embracing a student cohort from around the world his staff includes many of the countries leading musicians. As well as his educational and managerial responsibilities he conducts several of the conservatoire orchestras and ensembles including Trinity Laban’s String Ensemble. With them, he has given performances both nationally and internationally including the Ljubliana Festival, Italy’s Emilia Romana Festival, Conciertos de las Velas in Peraza Spain and at the Dartington International Summer School. The group has also participated in collaborative projects with Chetham’s School of Music, Wells Cathedral School, and the Yehudi Menuhin School. They have performed with many renown soloists including oboist Nick Daniel, clarinetists Dimitri Ashkenazy and Darko Brlek, pianists William Howard and Helen Reed, violist Rivka Golani, organist David Titterington and jazz saxophonist Julian Arguelles with whom they recorded the critically acclaimed album As Above So Below.

Sally Pendlebury is a member of The Fitzwilliam Quartet, The Angell Piano Trio and Möbius. She grew up in Manchester and now teaches there at the Royal Northern College of Music, as well as at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

She regularly plays as Guest Principal Cello with London Sinfonietta, the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic. She is an associate member of Chamber Orchestra of Europe and was Cello Section Leader of Opera North for five years.

Pianist Dylan Perez is a recitalist, chamber musician and coach specialising in vocal repertoire who is highly in demand across the UK. He graduated in 2018 with Distinction with an Artist Diploma and in 2016 with Distinction with an Artist Masters from the Guildhall School where he studied with Eugene Asti, Andrew West, Iain Burnside, Julius Drake, and Pamela Lidiard. He was also the Lord and Lady Lurgan Collaborative Piano Fellow at the Royal College of Music, London from 2019-2020. Prior to relocating to London, he studied at the University of Michigan with Louis Nagel and Martin Katz.