CERYS JONES

Graham Ross

Graham Ross is a composer and conductor of a wide range of repertoire.  He has worked with specialised ensembles and orchestras alike in music from Buxtehude to MacMillan.  He is one of today's youngest published composers, and has had works performed throughout the UK and beyond.  A passionate believer in the unveiling of both unjustly-neglected and newly-penned works, he has given numerous first performances as both a pianist and conductor of a very broad spectrum of composers.

Born in Farnham, Surrey in 1985, he was educated at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating with the Royalton Kisch Prize for the highest academic grade in College.  At the RCM he studied piano with James Lisney and Thalia Myers, alongside lessons in organ and composition, winning four of the RCM prizes, including one for outstanding all-round musicianship.  At Cambridge he worked with many of the major University ensembles, holding Assistant Conductorships with both the University Symphony Orchestra and the University Musical Society.  He is Principal Conductor of The Dmitri Ensemble; a group which he co-formed in 2004 based around the central core of a string ensemble, in order to explore in particular both rarely performed and newly-composed works.  The Ensemble has been praised for its highly acclaimed performances, including works by Giles Swayne and James MacMillan in the presence of the composers.  He guest conducts numerous ensembles and orchestras, most recently British Police Symphony Orchestra, Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra, Hertfordshire Schools Symphony Orchestra, and the Sinfonia of Cambridge.  At Easter 2007 he made his opera debut conducting the Choir and Orchestra of London in The Magic Flute in Jerusalem, the first ever fully-staged operatic production on the West Bank.  He works with the New London Chamber Choir and the London Symphony Chorus, the latter with whom he holds a conducting scholarship for 2007/08.  He is passionately committed to music education and outreach projects, and works regularly in this capacity for the Wigmore Hall, RCM Junior Department, and Children's Music Workshops (English Pocket Opera Company).  He is currently studying for an MMus in orchestral conducting under Peter Stark and Robin O'Neill at the Royal College of Music, generously supported by an H.R. Taylor Trust Award for Conducting.  He has received tuition from and prepared orchestras for, amongst others, George Hurst, Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Leif Segerstam, Neil Thomson and the late János Fürst. 

As a composer he studied principally with Giles Swayne, and with David Sutton-Anderson and Timothy Salter.  He has had works performed at numerous concerts and festivals in both live and broadcast performances, including as far afield as Slovenia, Kuwait and Israel.  He has had performances given by, amongst others, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Westminster Choir College (Princeton, USA), The Place Contemporary Dance School, Phantasmagoria Vocal Ensemble, Choir of Clare College, Royal College of Music JD Chamber Choir, English Voices, Aquilo Wind Ensemble, The Syred Consort, Choir of London and The Dmitri Ensemble.  In 2006 he won the National Youth Choir of Great Britain’s inaugural composition competition, and subsequently published by Novello & Co whilst still an undergraduate.   In 2007 he was the featured composer for the Festival of St Stephen's, Gloucester Road.  He is an spnm (Society for the Promotion of New Music) shortlisted composer, and his works are housed in the British Music Information Centre (BMIC).

Forthcoming engagements include a major project with The Dmitri Ensemble, PASSIONTIDE 2008: a tour of contemporary works for Easter including performances at St. John's, Smith Square and the Cathedrals of Norwich and St. Paul's, London at Easter 2008, culminating in the recording of a disc of James MacMillan's work for the Naxos label, due for release in 2009.  At November 2008 he will make his Danish conducting debut with the Aalborg Symfoniorkester.  New commissions include works for Sonya Knussen and The Knack Singers (a collaboration between Making Music, PRS Foundation and spnm's Adopt-a-Composer scheme), the Aurora Orchestra (Al Bustan International Festival of Music and the Arts, Beirut, Lebanon, February 2008), Sounds Positive (The Warehouse, May 2008), and a major new work for violinist Cerys Jones.

Graham is generously supported by a BBC Fame Academy Education Bursary, as one of four recipients of this prize in 2006.  www.grahamross.com

Helen Grime

Helen Grime was born in 1981, and attended the City of Edinburgh Music School and St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh, where she studied oboe with Robin Miller. In 1999 she received a Foundation Scholarship at the Royal College of Music to study both oboe and composition. Helen studied oboe with John Anderson, and composition with Julian Anderson and Edwin Roxburgh.

During her time at college, Helen graduated from the BMus course with First Class Honours and has recently completed her Masters with Distinction. During her BMus degree, Helen was awarded the First Year Oboe Prize and the Manilow Prize for all-round excellence. She played principal oboe in concerts with the New Perspectives Ensemble, the Sinfonietta and the Baroque Orchestra. She attended the Paxos Festival as oboist in September 2003 and has been Principal oboe with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and its Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Scotland.

Helen has written both instrumental and vocal music. In 2001 she wrote Doorstepping Susanna for ENO Studio and Tête à Tête Opera, the youngest of six composers commissioned to write short operas for these groups. Doorstepping Susanna received over twenty performances throughout the country. Helen’s music has been performed by the Hebrides Ensemble, who commissioned her to write a song for their Millennium Songbook. Other projects include A Last Look, a song for soprano and piano, written for Andrew Motion’s fiftieth birthday celebrations, and performed in the presence of the Poet Laureate in February 2002. A Last Look was subsequently performed at the Royal College of Music and around Scotland, by the Hebrides Ensemble. Helen’s oboe concerto was premiered by the Meadows Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Peter Evans, with Helen as oboe soloist. The work was reviewed to critical acclaim in the Glasgow Herald. In January 2004, Helen performed the concerto with the RCM Sinfonietta conducted by Neil Thomson, which was widely reviewed in the National Press.

Helen won the Making Music category of the 2003 British Composer Awards with her oboe concerto, and was awarded the intercollegiate Theodore Holland Composition Prize as well as all the major composition prizes in the RCM. Following the British Composer Award, Helen received a BBC Radio 3 commission to write Chasing Butterflies for 100 violas. The piece incorporates a range of standards from beginner to the BBCSSO viola section. Chasing Butterflies was performed as part of the William Primrose festival in Glasgow conducted by Martyn Brabbins.

In June 2004, her Song for seven instruments was premiered as part of the Philharmonia Music of Today series, and in July the Quartet for clarinet and string trio received its première in the King’s Lynn festival performed by the Contemporary Consort. The Flash of Fireflies in folds of darkness for solo piano recently received its first performance in the Warehouse given by Daniel Becker.

In May 2005, Helen’s Lachrymae, for a capella choir, received its premiere by the Ionian singers conducted by Tim Salter.