Staff A-Z

Born in Israel in 1967, Ofer studied with the legendary pedagogue Ilona Feher in Tel Aviv and later with Professor Dora Schwarzberg in Vienna. Isaac Stem, Pinchas Zukerman, Josef Gingold, Menahem Pressler and members of the Guarneri and the Borodin Quartet have also coached him. Ofer is now an associate professor of violin at Trinity Laban.

Much of his work has been as a chamber musician; first as leader and founder member of the Schidlof Quartet (1994-2001), and now as leader of the Falk Quartet (2001), performing with such artists as Murray Perahia and Jack Brymer. Ofer has performed as a soloist with most of the major Israeli Orchestras in the UK at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room. In Russia, Ofer has performed as a soloist and recitalist in most of the main venues, including the Bolshoi and Mali Saal in Moscow. Orchestral experience includes two years as leader of the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra (1996-1998), guest leading with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as well as frequently guest leading the English Chamber Orchestra. In February 2003, Ofer made his debut performance as soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra and was immediately reinvited for subsequent performances.

Douglas Finch was born in Winnipeg and began improvising, composing and performing on the piano from an early age with the help of his mother. He later continued studying with Winnifred Sim, Jean Broadfoot and at the University of Western Ontario with William Aide. After receiving a Masters from Juilliard in New York under Beveridge Webster, Douglas won several awards and was a finalist at the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels. After moving to London, he co-founded The Continuum Ensemble in 1994 and has collaborated in premiering many new works. He appears regularly with the ensemble at festivals including Spitalfields and at Southbank Centre, featuring composers such as Julian Anderson, Georges Aperghis, Henri Dutilleux, Charles Ives, Claude Vivier, Errollyn Wallen, Iannis Xenakis and many others. He has composed for piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, theatre and film and his score for the feature film Painted Angels was described in The Independent as “an extraordinary triumph of artistic will”.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Transcription and borrowing approaches in musical composition
• Overlapping working methods in improvising and composing
• Contemporary music practice / collaboration / curation
• Composing music for independent art films

World renowned bassist Orlando le Fleming was born in Birmingham but spent most of his early childhood living in Exeter, Devon. Both of his parents are professional musicians; his mother a cellist and his father a composer. His first ambition was to become a professional cricketer, an aim that was realized when he played for five years in the minor counties. 

Mick Foster is a saxophonist, woodwind player and composer who is known as one of the UK’s foremost exponents of the baritone saxophone.  He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and has since worked extensively in the fields of jazz, commercial and classical music.  He has played with many ensembles such as the big bands of John Dankworth, Stan Sulzmann and Mike Garrick, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Swing Out Sister, The Syd Lawrence Orchestra, The London Philharmonic Orchestra, English National Opera and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Mick is active as an educator; he currently teaches at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Trinity Laban and Goldsmiths College; he is also a tutor for the National Youth Jazz Collective.

Matt studied at the Royal College of Music, where he was awarded the Sabian Percussion Prize on graduation.

He was then accepted onto the prestigious Archer Scholarship, where he played with Bobby Lamb’s Trinity Big Band.

Since leaving the RCM, Matt has enjoyed a varied career which has seen him play with many orchestras including the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera, the Ulster Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In addition to his orchestral work, Matt has played on countless musicals both on tour and in London’s glittering West End.

Mayumi Fujikawa’s earliest training began with her father, a self-taught violinist, at the age of 3. At 16, she attended the Toho Conservatoire in Tokyo studying with the Hideo Saito, Kenji Kobayashi and Tomoyasu Soh. A scholarship from the Alex de Vries Foundation enabled her to work with Franz Wigy, a pupil of Ysaye, at the Flemish National Music Institute in Belgium. She later studied briefly with Leonid Kogan prior to her Grand Prix Vieuxtemps and her spectacular success in the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition, where she was described by David Oistrach as “the revelation of the competition”. Her concert activities have taken her as far afield as South America, the Far East, Israel, Asia and her native Japan. Her career in the United States began with a spectacular debut at the Lincoln Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy and has since widened to include appearances with virtually all the major US orchestras including Chicago, Boston, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Cleveland with which she appeared with Lorin Maazel at Carnegie Hall.

Sophie Fuller is a musicologist and writer on music. Her research interests centre around gender, sexuality and music in Britain in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and she has published widely on women’s engagement with music and music making. Author of The Pandora Guide to Women Composers (1994), Sophie has recently edited, with Jenny Doctor, Music, Life, and Changing Times: Selected Correspondence between British Composers Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams, 1927-77 (2020) as well as contributing to The Cambridge Companion to Women in Music since 1900 (2021), The Routledge Handbook of Women’s Work in Music (2022) and The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers (2023). 

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Cultural musicology, particularly late 19th and 20th century Britain
• Gender, sexuality and music
• Performance spaces for music

Sameeta Gahir began learning the flute at the age of eight, and the piccolo two years later. Growing up in London, she attended Alleyn’s School as a music scholar, and performed with youth orchestras including London Schools’ Symphony Orchestra as both Principal Flute and Piccolo.

In 2007, Sameeta became a Sir Thomas Beecham scholar at the University of Durham, which enabled her to study with the Principal Flute of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Juliette Bausor. In 2009, Sameeta started studying for a Bachelor of Music degree at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating with first class honours in 2013. Sameeta then embarked upon a two-year Master of Music course at the Köln Hochschule für Musik with Robert Winn. She was appointed Principal Piccolo of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra during the first year of that course.

Sameeta is grateful for the generous support by the Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust, EMI Music Sound Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society.

A leading player in the field of guitar chamber music, for ten years Roland was leader of the English Guitar Quartet; he currently leads the Segovia Trio, which he founded in 1986. With Roland Chadwick and Vincent Lindsey-Clark, he formed the Modern Guitar Trio in 1999 to perform exclusively works written by the performers in the group. He is a frequent performer in various ensembles with flute, voice and string quartets, and has recorded Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Roland has played at London’s major concert halls including Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican and Southbank Centre. He has toured Hungary, Israel, Australia, Canada and Germany. In 2004, at the invitation of the Venezuelan embassy, he gave a series of recitals and workshops in Venezuela. Well known as an arranger, Roland has produced over 300 arrangements and transcriptions, mostly for guitar ensemble and ranging from student repertoire to concert material. Over the years, he has worked with many composers to enrich the repertoire of the guitar. Those that have specially written works for him include Martyn Brabbins, Tim Brady, Jim Harley, Štěpán Rak, Jeffrey Sharkey, Roger Steptoe, Antonín Tučapský and Arthur Wills. Over the last few years Roland has broadcast live on BBC Radio 2, 3, 4, and Classic FM and appeared on television. He has worked regularly with the Royal Ballet and has appeared with them at the Royal Opera House, on tour and on film.

Dutch-born classical guitarist Dario van Gammeren has established an international career as a performer, educator and musicologist. He has performed widely as a soloist and chamber musician in the United Kingdom and abroad, and he has worked with numerous composers to broaden the classical guitar’s repertoire. Dario is Programme Leader for the Independent Study Programme (Advanced), the Postgraduate Advanced Diploma, and the Certificate in the Practice of Music Making. In addition, he is Digital Learning Manager, in which capacity he leads on the development and implementation of digital technologies that support a blended approach to curriculum delivery.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Guitar performance
• 20th century musicology

Alan Garner holds the unusual distinction of having held full-time posts in all three roles within the orchestral oboe section: after studying at the Royal College of Music with Peter Graeme and Michael Winfield, he joined the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as Second Oboe, and later moved across the city to become Principal Oboe with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. Returning south of the border, he was appointed Principal Cor Anglais with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2002, the post he currently holds.

Alan Garner holds the unusual distinction of having held full-time posts in all three roles within the orchestral oboe section: after studying at the Royal College of Music with Peter Graeme and Michael Winfield, he joined the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as Second Oboe, and later moved across the city to become Principal Oboe with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera. Returning south of the border, he was appointed Principal Cor Anglais with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2002, the post he currently holds.

Paolo De Gaspari is one of the new generation of European virtuoso bass clarinettists. He studied at Rotterdam Conservatorium with Henri Bok, and is now a leading exponent on the instrument, performing and teaching extensively in Europe. Through continuous study, research and development, often in partnership with composers, he has extended the language of the bass clarinet, effectively enabling the expression of new musical ideas and raising the profile of this beautiful instrument.

Deniz Arman Gelenbe has been acclaimed as one the best chamber musicians of our time. Critics have been unanimous in hailing her prodigious technique, compelling artistic personality and poetic interpretations. As a versatile artist, she combines an international performing career as a soloist and chamber musician, and teaching piano and chamber music at the highest level. Her students have been successful in several international and national competitions and perform at prestigious venues internationally.

Jo is a community music practitioner-researcher from East London. She is a Research Fellow at York St John University’s Institute for Social Justice, an associate of The International Centre for Community Music and a supervisor and visiting lecturer at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Jo is interested in performing arts for social justice and practice research, with particular focus on the ethics of making together, agency and cultural democracy. As a community musician, Jo has led creative music-making projects across the education sector, in community centres, health settings and for arts organisations including orchestras and galleries.

Rivka Golani is recognised as one of the most outstanding violists of modern times. She has greatly contributed to the advancement of viola technique and inspired many composers to write for the instrument. More than 350 works have so far been composed for Rivka, including over 80 concertos, a record matched by no other violist in history.

Rivka has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s most prominent orchestras: BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, the Hallé, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Royal Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Jerusalem Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan, Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and countless others. She has also performed as a soloist at the Proms concerts in London three times, including at the last night of the Proms.