Summer Schools tutors

Laurence Cummings is one of Britain’s most exciting and versatile exponents of historical performance both as conductor and harpsichord player. He is currently Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music, Musical Director of the London Handel Festival since 1999 and Artistic Director of the Internationale Händel-Festpiele Göttingen since 2012, as well as acting as Music Director for Orquestra Barroca Casa da Musica Porto. He is the William Crotch Professor of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music and remains a trustee of the Handel House Museum.

British-Swiss violinist Naomi Burrell enjoys a diverse career as a musician with a specialism in historical performance. She plays with many of the UK’s leading early music ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Brecon Baroque, Academy of Ancient Music, I Fagiolini, La Nuova Musica, The Mozartists and Solomon’s Knot. She has also been engaged as guest leader for English Touring Opera on several occasions. Extensive touring with the European Union Baroque Orchestra in 2009 presented many opportunities to work with musicians from around the world, leading to 15 years of freelance work in ensembles such as Cappella Mediterranea in France, Il Pomo d’Oro in Italy and with the theatrical, Norwegian folk-baroque ensemble, Barokksolistene. 

Naomi has worked in theatre with the likes of Mark Rylance in the West End and David Horovitch at Shakespeare’s Globe and with choreographers Sasha Waltz, Andreas Heise, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Shobana Jeyasingh. She is making steps into the world of directing and was joint music director for an experimental version of Purcell’s Fairy Queen at Longborough Opera last summer, where ‘the band was irrepressible and vital both in the pit and on the stage’ (Plays to See, Mel Cooper). Finally, Naomi is a passionate facilitator and mentor and enjoys sharing her love of the arts with all ages and walks of life. Visit her website for more information.

Over the last twenty years Joseph Crouch has secured a reputation as one of the most respected and sought-after Baroque instrumentalists in Europe. As a player in the UK he has performed and recorded concerto solos with most of the leading period instrument orchestras and is currently principal cellist with the The English Concert and joint principal with The Academy of Ancient Music. Joe is also busy as a teacher (not least at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama), as a course leader and director, and as a coach to modern orchestras in baroque techniques and performance. In this last capacity he has coached the cellists of both The Royal Opera House and English National Opera as well as The BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Joseph was a boy treble in the choir of Westminster Abbey and later a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge. It was in these rarefied choir stalls, during performances and recordings of Handel, Purcell and Bach, that he first heard gut-strung instruments. He was immediately drawn to their sound, to the energy of the repertoire, and to the highly animated continuo group in particular. Most of all, though, he loved the collaborations between choirs and orchestras. That love, combined with the manifest unloveliness of his singing, brought him to postgraduate Baroque cello studies at The Royal Academy of Music under Jennifer Ward Clarke (and head of department Laurence Cummings!). From there, Joe joined the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and it was here (in the class of 2000 alongside Bojan Čičić!) that he really found his future path.

Leo is the Principal Oboist of the Academy of Ancient Music and appears regularly as guest-principal with, among others, the English Baroque Soloists, the Sixteen, the Dunedin Consort, Arcangelo, La Nuova Musica and the English Concert, and is also a member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He performs regularly at the BBC Proms and the Glyndebourne Festival and has toured worldwide. As a chamber musician and concerto soloist, he has performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and live on BBC Radio 3.
Visit his website for more information.

Mary Collins is an Early Dance specialist whose research and teaching approach has inspired musicians to look afresh at the dance music that is at the heart of the baroque repertoire bringing, in turn, a fresh perspective on the great composers of the baroque era. A practitioner and researcher, she has worked with music, dance, theatre and TV companies as adviser, choreographer, dancer and actress, touring regularly to give masterclasses, concerts, lecture-recitals and workshops. Mary teaches at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London and receives frequent invitations to conservatoires throughout Europe. A faculty member of Aestas Musica in Croatia, the Austria Barokakademie and, for 26 years, the Ringve International Summer Course in Norway, she is in constant collaboration with many of the world’s leading exponents of early music. Visit Mary Collins’ website.

Passionate about consort singing, Clare’s expressive singing and personal warmth have won her a legion of fans. Her musical gods are Bach and Byrd, but she enjoys plenty more; many new songs have also been written for her, including a number by her late father Stephen. She has made recordings with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Andrew Parrott, the Dunedin Consort, Fretwork, the Rose Consort of Viols, Alamire and Ensemble Plus Ultra, among others; a number of her disks have won Gramophone awards and nominations. She is also a member of I Fagiolini, with whom she enjoys a broad spectrum of musical experiences, from staged Monteverdi madrigals to banana gags; she also enjoys a regular collaboration with Jacob Heringman. Clare lives in Belgium with her husband and two small sons, and is more often to be heard singing Flemish nursery rhymes than anything else at present – she appreciates the musical variety that different phases of life can bring. For more information, visit Clare Wilkinson’s website.

Nicholas began his musical career as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, and then from Uppingham School to King’s College Cambridge where he sang as a choral scholar. Moving to London in 1995, he quickly found himself immersed in an international choral scene, performing, touring and recording widely with groups such as Polyphony, The King’s Consort, The Sixteen and The Cardinall’s Musick. In 1997, he began singing and recording with The Huelgas Ensemble, performing all over Europe as a consort singer and soloist. Poliziano’s Orfeo was one of his most prominent roles, which he performed on Dutch national radio. Nicholas became a regular member of the Tallis Scholars between 2000 and 2007, and then moved into teaching, working as Head of Singing at the King’s School Canterbury, a position that he holds to this day. He continues to perform and record frequently with Alamire, The Cardinall’s Musick and Tenebrae.

Susanna Pell studied music at The University of York and viol with Jordi Savall at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. She was a member of the highly acclaimed viol consort Fretwork for over twenty years, with whom she made numerous recordings, including Purcell: Complete Fantazias (Winner of the Baroque Instrumental Gramophone Award 2009 : Editor’s Choice, Classic FM Magazine July 2009); Birds on Fire – Jewish Music for Viols (Gramophone Magazine: September 2008—Editor’s Choice) and performed at major festivals throughout the world. Susanna also performed for two decades with medieval group, The Dufay Collective, as well as appearing regularly with numerous other leading period ensembles including The Purcell Quartet, The New London Consort, The King’s Consort, The Taverner Consort and Players, The Parley of Instruments and Opera Restor’d. She is now half of Pellingmans’ Saraband, a duo with her husband, lutenist Jacob Heringman, and a third of new Newcastle based baroque trio The Herschel Trio with Graham O’Sullivan, flute and Mie Hayashi-O’Sullivan, harpsichord. Susanna is qualified as a teacher of the Alexander Technique and teaches viol at the University of York.