The Early Music Man

I grew up in Leicestershire and played cello in the Leicestershire Schools Orchestra. Later I auditioned for the National Youth Orchestra and was a member for 4 years.

I went on to study Cello, French Horn and Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Douglas Cameron, Charles Gregory and Maurice Miles. In my final year  I was awarded the Ricordi Prize for conducting.

Following some free lance work with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Festival Ballet I was a member of the New BBC Orchestra for a couple of years before taking up a post as a Brass Teacher in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. After a few years I returned to England to take up a post as cello teacher in North Staffordshire.

In Staffordshire I went on to become  Cannock Music Centre Supervisor, then Lichfield & Rugeley Music Centre Supervisor and later County Instrumental Supervisor.

My interest in Early Music started in 1992 when doing research for a Staff String Ensemble Dance Music programme I visited the Stafford Morris Men and was persuaded to join them and to learn the Pipe & Tabor (the traditional Morris instrument). Incidentally since then I have become an honorary member of the Cambridge Morris Men.

In 1998 a vacancy arose for the post of Musical Director of the Staffordshire Youth Recorder Ensemble, to which I was appointed. One of the first things we did was to purchase a set of Crumhorns. This led to working with Nigel Taylor (Head of Staffordshire Performing Arts) to apply for a  National Lottery Grant from the Arts Council to purchase further early instruments. In 2000 we were lucky enough to receive a grant of £26000 which we spent on purchasing viols, rebecs, shawms, rauschpfeifen  etc.etc.

One of the conditions of the grant was that the conductor  should undertake some tuition on all the instruments, and so I have been very fortunate to have had lessons with some of the finest exponents of these instruments in the country.

A group of 15 were invited to represent Western Culture in the All Japan High School Cultural Festival which was held in Shizuoka in August 2000. For this Festival we learnt some Renaissance Dances and songs.

Since then the group and I have further developed our repertoire of music, song and dance from the Middle Ages up to the Stuarts, and have performed in many Historic Venues including Edinburgh and Stirling Castles and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

I was involved in the setting up of the Renaissance part of the new OCR GCSE Music syllabus. Following on from that I have given many Tudor workshops for Primary Schools and GCSE Music workshops for High Schools. These have taken me all over the West Midlands and beyond.

Over the last 10 years I have purchased more instruments for myself, including a bass viol, psaltery, rasuschpfeife, vielle, hurdy gurdy and most recently a crumhorn and rebec.

In  2006  the Staffordshire Youth Recorder and Renaissance Ensemble performed in the Ingestre Suite in front of HM The Queen and Prince Philip when they visited Stafford to celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the granting of a charter to Stafford by King John. Later in July the SYRRE played in the York Early Music Festival and for the York Mystery plays, after which I took retirement.

Since then I have been kept very busy in my role as "The Early Music Man", performing in many beautiful National Trust and historical properties, giving workshops to Primary and Secondary schools and giving demonstrations to local societies.