Steve Dummer is a conductor, clarinetist, educator and all-round enthusiast for participation in music making at every level. He is musical director of Kidenza, a critically acclaimed professional orchestra giving concerts for children around the UK, founder and director of Talkestra, which tries to reach new audiences for concert music, conductor of the Horsham Symphony Orchestra, which, under Steve’s directorship, has become “one of the best community orchestras” in the UK, conductor of the Ensemble Reza‘s Community Orchestra and a regular tutor and conductor at Dartington International Summer School. As a clarinettist, he gives regular recitals and concerts throughout the UK and abroad and records for television and film. He has given world premieres of music written for him by many composers including Peter Copley, Paul Carr, Barry Mills and Patrick Harrex and has recorded a CD of the complete clarinet music by John Hawkins including the Clarinet Concerto with Stane Street Sinfonietta and conductor Holly Mathieson. He was a member of Juan Martin’s Flamenco Group featuring on the much-admired CD ‘Musica Alhambra’, a founder member of the zany jazz band Itchy Feet and now plays piano, clarinet, saxophone, melodica, rubber bread stick and composes and undertakes balloon modelling for the great Speakeasy Revival Orchestra.
Sophie Mather is based in London and is a member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester Camerata and the Berkeley Ensemble. She studied at the University of Manchester and the Royal Northern College of Music with Richard Deakin and then moved to London to study with Clio Gould at the Royal Academy of Music. She very much enjoys a varied musical life, playing for a wide range of groups including the Scottish Ensemble and London Sinfonietta. She also very much enjoys teaching both privately and at Blackheath High Junior School.
Rachel Gorman moved to Brighton in 2015 and lived in various parts of the city before settling in Shoreham, West Sussex. Graduating in 2014, she has gone on to freelance with various British Orchestras, such as Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra. She is a violin teacher at Lancing College and Windlesham School. She has a particular love for chamber music and enjoys playing in the Amiche String Quartet with 3 close friends, all based in Sussex.
Judith Templeman is a highly versatile British violinist, with a wealth of diverse professional experience. She has performed as soloist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, as well as soloist/director with the Trafalgar Sinfonia in St Martin in the Fields. She has performed recitals in the Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square and Alice Tully Hall, New York. Judith graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with First Class honours. She went on to receive a Fulbright Scholarship to study with Dorothy Delay at the Julliard School. Judith was the 1999 English Speaking Union Scholar to Tanglewood Music Center, MA where she studied chamber music with Yo Yo Ma and Emmanuel Ax, and gave a recital at Seiji Ozawa Hall. She was the winner of the 1998 Morgenstern Award at the Shell/LSO competition. As a chamber musician Judith has collaborated with musicians such as Steven Osborne and Sakari Oramo, as well as playing recitals with Huw Watkins and Nicola Eimer. Judith has also performed many recitals including RSO Frankfurt Orchestra’s 75thAnniversary Festival, the Fulbright Yearly Seminar in Berlin, the Barber Institute, Birmingham University and at Bishopsgate Hall London for the City Music Society. In 2003 she appeared as the violin soloist in the BBC Radio 4 afternoon play “Bloody Stefi”, a dramatization of the life of the female violinist Stefi Geyer. She has appeared on Radio 3’s “In Tune” programme. Judith has sat on numerous judging panels including the Young Musician of the Year 2004. She has lead numerous orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and City of London Sinfonia, and she has held principal positions with the CBSO and RPO. Judith plays a J.B. Ceruti violin, made in Cremona in 1804
Anna Giddey began playing the violin aged seven. Growing up in Lewes, East Sussex she was inspired to pursue a career in music on discovering a passion for ensemble and orchestral playing. Anna gained a Bmus at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Simon Fischer, and then went on to further study with Howard Davis. She was awarded bursaries and scholarships for the Emanuel Hurwitz Chamber Music Course, International Academy of String Quartets Course in Aldeburgh and the Chilingirian Quartet Course. Anna enjoys a varied free-lance career, working with Symphony Orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia and Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as education work introducing classical music to children. She embraces music of different genres from contemporary classical to pop and jazz having performed / recorded with artists as diverse as Ronnie Scott’s House Band, The New Music Players, Pavarotti, Robbie Williams and Ozzy Osborne. Since re-locating back to Sussex Anna combines her performing career with teaching at Christ’s Hospital. She lives in Horsham with her husband and two sons.
Rachel Ellis began her musical training at the Kent Junior Music School in Maidstone on Saturday mornings where she studied with Gillian Sansom. From there she won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music where she studied with Jaroslav Vanecek for 5 years. One of the highlights of her college years was playing in the European Community Youth Orchestra, playing in the Philharmonie in Berlin, and being conducted by Claudio Abbado. However, for the most part, her great love since those days, has been playing in smaller ensembles, starting in London with the Dove String Quartet, who travelled the country playing in a wide range of community settings for ‘Live Music Now’. Over the past 20 years now, she has enjoyed a rich variety of chamber music with friends and colleagues. As leader of the Horsham Symphony Orchestra she has had wonderful opportunities to learn and perform some of the great romantic violin concertos. She is currently a regular member of the King’s Chamber Orchestra and is a founder member of Stane Street Sinfonietta. Rachel has lived Broadbridge Heath in Horsham since 1996, just a few miles from Stane Street.
Anna Cooper says “Stane Street is my favourite road in Britain. Every long straight mile brings me closer to the music !”
Ros Hanson-Laurent moved to Brighton in Sussex in 2007 with her now husband Joe having moved back to the UK from Bermuda where she worked for the Menuhin Foundation for 5 years. Ros is an experienced performer, both on modern and Baroque instruments and is well known across sussex as a viola soloist, orchestral and chamber musician. Ros plays regularly with Ensemble Reza, co-founded the Brighton Chamber ensemble and has done recordings for local composers including Peter Copley, John Hawkins and Barry Mills.
Joe Giddey is a freelance cellist who plays with many varied ensembles, working with orchestras, quartets, string ensembles, bands and recording sessions for film and television. Orchestral work includes BBC Concert Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Opera Holland Park, Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, New English Concert Orchestra and New Music Players. Joe also performs with many of the orchestras and ensembles in the the South East. Including The Orchestra of Sound and Light conducted by Ed Hughes, Sussex University, Bexhill Sinfonietta and the The Stane Street Sinfonietta conducted by Steve Dummer. Joe also performs, records and tours with Nick Cave, Caro Emerald, Nerina Pallot and jazz vocalist Claire Martin OBE. Collaborating with the Montpellier cello quartet, in a sound fusion of jazz-chamber music written for the ensemble by internationally renowned musicians and composers, including Richard Rodney Bennett, Mark Anthony Turnage, Joe Stilgoe and Django Bates.