Biographies4

Oliver Nelson is a British violinist, known as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician.

He gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music and has since collaborated with some of Britain's finest musicians. His engagements have ranged from being a recitalist at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, chamber musician in the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, soloist with the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra, and solo recording artist with Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore in François Girard's 2019 film, The Song of Names.

Oliver is the conductor of both the Hindhead Symphony and String Orchestras, and is the string coach to both the Winchester and Woking Symphony Orchestras.

Martyn Noble is Sub-Organist at H.M. Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace, Musician-in-Residence and Teacher of Piano at Highgate School and Teacher of Organ and Piano Accompanist and at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. He is also the regular accompanist of the Pro Arte Choir and deputises for several other choral societies in and around London.

In the UK, he has given Organ recitals in many Cathedrals and churches, he has also played in Paris, Leiden (Holland), Budapest, Brussels, Germany and Northern Ireland. As an accompanist he has worked for professors and students at the Royal College and Royal Academy of Music, the Leeds Lieder Festival and the British Isles Music Festival. In 2018, he was fortunate to play Keys 2 for the UK tour of ‘Miss Saigon’.

In 2015, Martyn graduated with a first class BMus from the Royal College of Music. He has appeared live on BBC Radio’s 3 and 4 and has recorded several CD’s for Novello, Boosey & Hawkes and Priory and Signum Records. Martyn plays annually for Classic FM’s broadcast of ‘Carols from Buckingham Palace’ which airs immediately after H.M. The King’s speech on Christmas Day.

He has also composed several choral works which are distributed by the Chichester Music Press and have received premieres at Exeter University, the Royal College of Music and as part of the Festival of Contemporary Church Music.

Charlie Penn graduated from the University of Birmingham where he studied the piano with Joseph Middleton. He has a busy freelance career as a versatile musician specialising in work with choirs of all ages and abilities.

Charlie is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, previously joining the music staff for the award-winning Grimes on the Beach in Aldeburgh. He is director of the Harborough Singers as well as Assistant Director to Cantate Youth Choir, guest director of A440 choir in Reading and accompanist to the Hanover Choir and Hertford Choral Society. He also works with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain as a section leader and accompanist.

Additionally, he delivers choral workshops in schools across the country for the Voices Foundation, and regularly works with Sinfonia Viva on their education and orchestral projects.

On stage in the UK and Australia, he has appeared in Orpheus, an original piece devised and performed by Little Bulb Theatre and as Keyboard 1 in an exciting new orchestration of the Threepennny Opera for the renowned Salzburg Festival. He has even made a brief appearance on the BBC’s The One Show, teaching Lee Mack some basic piano vamping!

James Perkins studied the Organ, Harpsichord and French Horn at the Royal College of Music where he won many prizes.

As an organist, he has given recitals throughout the UK including the Cathedrals of St Paul’s and Westminster in London.

As an accompanist and teacher he is in demand in London and the Southeast for his sensitive and sympathetic keyboard skills.

He currently holds a coveted position in the Band of the Grenadier Guards as a French Horn player where his duties include many state and ceremonial occasions, most recently, the funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II.

Alberto Roque began his studies at SAMP in Portugal followed by orchestral conducting with Jean-Marc Burfin and Jean-Sébastien Béreau. From 2004 to 2021 he was the conductor of the Orquestra de Sopros da Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, the Camerata de Sopros Silva Dionisio Chamber Winds and was Head of Wind Conducting Studies at the Lisbon College of Music. Alberto is currently the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Ensemble de Sopros AFCL with whom he has recorded the music of Beethoven, Alfred Reed and Serge Lancen for various digital platforms. He also teaches at SAMP’s School of Arts, conducting the Youth Orchestra Klassicus SAMP and the community orchestra Ars Lusitanae. He is a founding member and Music Director of the Musicalmente Company and the project “Concert for Babies”.

Alberto is also a busy guest conductor with invitations from both home and abroad where he works with many international ensembles and soloists. He was a member of the Artistic Planning Committee of the WASBE conferences in Chiayi City, Taiwan and in Utrecht (Netherlands) and in 2015 gave conducting masterclasses at the WASBE conference in S. José, California. Since 2016 Alberto has been a member of the Wind Conducting faculty at Sherborne Summer School of Music.