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I grew up in a mixture both of London, England and Sydney, Australia. I began the cello at age 15, until then I wanted only to play sport, especially tennis and athletics. At age19, I began my degree and performance diploma in cello at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. In my final year at the RWCMD I was fortunate enough to study with Marianne Lie (Alpaca Trio) who taught me many important things that I will always be grateful for. Marianne was strict and never accepted any excuse for not having practised, but at the same time was very caring and devoted much time and energy to me as a student. Marianne was big on technique and taught me an efficient, Alexander Technique based way of moving around the cello. Marianne also taught me that we need to be our own inspiration and not to practise and progress to please others or our teachers. After finishing my degree at the RWCMD I moved in 2001 to Bremen, Germany to begin postgraduate cello studies with Alexander Baillie, another person who had already greatly influenced me and my thinking after cello lessons and summer schools in previous years. When I arrived in Bremen, Sandy was going through a period where he was very taken by the qualities of the viola da gamba and was advising all of his students to try it out in order to widen our knowledge and assist our cello playing. I tried it, liked it and haven't looked back since. The Bremen viola da gamba class, two members in particular, Julia and Giso welcomed me into their class and enthusiastically shared their knowledge and love of the gamba. They lent me an instrument, gave me my first lesson, introduced me to the Bremen Music Academy gamba Professor Hille Perl, played viol consort regularly with me, frequently invited me around for dinner and generally made sure that living in a foreign country (where I didn't yet speak the language) was not too difficult. In September 2002 I became an official student of Hille Perl at the Bremen Music Hochschule. Hille is an incredible person and gamba player who has taught me more than I could ever attempt to describe. Apart from teaching me and continuing to teach me the gamba, Hille has taught me three points which I consider to be particularly important in not just the life of a musician: 1.) to believe in one's self, 2.) to not get in our own way and 3.) as a musician we have to create our own work/employment. These three points are (like everything in this world) related and function most efficiently when all three are present. Above all, Hille simply knows how to get the very best out of her students, by creating a supportive, positive and relaxed hard-working environment whilst simultaneously setting consistently and ever increasingly high standards for us as musicians and people. Having had so many influential, inspirational and intelligent teachers myself, I know how important and how great an influence I could be on my wonderful viola da gamba students. I love teaching them and hope that I continue to be the consistent inspiration they are looking for in a teacher. |