Tonight’s concert is a smorgasbord of carols and Christmas (ish!) music from different parts of the world. We’re delighted to welcome back players who we’ve been lucky enough to hear before – Ellie, Tom and Malcie, plus myself on cello. We’re also very happy to welcome back composer Rachel Stott, who has done some fantastic arrangements of some traditional carols (and other songs!) for string quartet, which you will hear tonight, interspersing the other music. Rachel delighted us with her music at our Concert for Ukraine, back in 2022. Her carols are from all over the world – 2 from Britain, one from Spain, one from Catalonia and one from France. Vivaldi’s Winter with Ellie as soloist with send shivers down your spine, and warming you back up will be a string quartet arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s fabulous Nutcracker Suite – it’s an arrangement by Carlo Martelli so don’t expect the whole LSO! – but Tchaikovsky’s wonderful tunes stand up to any sort of meddling! Next up will be a short Sibelius interlude – 1 of his Christmas songs, sent by pdf at the last minute by a Finnish friend and arranged by Rachel at about midnight Friday….segueing into his marvellous Andante Festivo – strictly speaking, not a Christmas piece at all, but nevertheless, very beautiful and written at Christmas-time… At this point, things may involve the audience – let’s see! Maybe do your vocal exercises, just in case…! Finally, to end the concert, Malcolm and Tom will be showcasing their talents as arrangers and singers respectively. The programme may be subject to alteration, or complete transformation, depending on how the muse takes us! Afterwards, do join us in the Brass Crosby room for tea, coffee and mince pies to send you on your way.
Ellie Fagg, violin
Described by the Strad magazine as playing ‘with a sense of enchantment’, Ellie Fagg enjoys a varied career performing around the world as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Her love of chamber music began at the age of seven at Pro Corda and she went on to lead the National Youth Orchestra in 2001. She studied at the Royal College of Music as an Associated Board Scholar and won coveted awards from MBF and Countess of Munster. She has appeared regularly at the Wigmore Hall with the Scottish Ensemble and Aurora Orchestra and at Kings Place with her Jazz-Classical fusion group, Living Room in London. Ellie has toured extensively with the LSO and with European Camerata. With the Puertas Quartet she has made three tours of New Zealand and recorded two CDs on Atoll records to critical acclaim.
Tom Norris, violin
Tom Norris graduated from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1994, and went on to study in Banff, Canada before joining the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as Principal 2nd Violin. Since returning to London, Tom has been a principal violinist of the London Symphony Orchestra performing regularly in festivals and concerts across the globe. Alongside life in the orchestra, Tom has collaborated with countless musicians, ranging from the Schubert Ensemble to Roger Daltrey and The Who. He has recorded with Nanci Griffith, Elvis Costello and Andrea Bocelli, and formed the Puertas Quartet, who’s debut CD was critics choice in the Strad Magazine. He collaborated with Manu Delago and Living Room in London, and released his own album as a singer/songwriter in 2010. Tom has been a member of the LSO since 1997 and is Co-Principal Second Violin in the Orchestra. He is also a member of the Puertas Quartet, formed in 2009, which was critics choice in this month’s Strad magazine, for its recording of music by Ravel and Tchaikovsky.
Tom and Ellie form part of Ensemble26, a group formed to promote local music over in Sydenham. Their example was a huge inspiration for WorldsEnd Music and we are delighted to have them join us for Christmas again this year. Do check out their link for great concerts over in SE26 – https://www.ensemble26.com/ – if you’d like more festive cheer they have a Christmas concert scheduled for this Wednesday! Do ask them for more information.
Malcolm Johnston, Viola
Malcolm Johnston – our viola player from Beckenham who is a good friend of Worlds End Music. He had such a blast at our last concert that he broke a pair of maraccas lent to us by the percussion section of the LSO! Let’s hope he behaves this evening…! Malcolm is in the enviable position of having vast experience in all forms of viola playing whether that be as soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player or teacher.He currently holds the Sub-Principal viola chair in the London Symphony Orchestra working with the world’s greatest conductors including Claudio Abbado, Sir Georg Solti, Bernard Haitink, Sir Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta and Seiji Ozawa to name a few. He is also Principal Viola with the European Camerata and has appeared as Guest Principal Viola with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Malcolm has recently been appointed Professor of Viola at London’s Trinity College of Music. Malcie is also a talented arranger and we will be hearing some of his amazing arrangements in the concert this evening.
Rebecca Gilliver – Cello and founder, Worlds End Music.
Rebecca was born in Farnborough but, having moved away at the tender age of 6 months, has to admit to considering herself as coming from Dorset. She moved back to the Orpington area in 2012 and now lives in Green Street Green with her husband and two large, hairy dogs. She is the Principal cellist of the London Symphony Orchestra. Early success in national and international competitions led to critically acclaimed debut recitals at the Wigmore Hall in London and Carnegie Hall, New York. Rebecca has appeared in major music festivals both as a soloist and as a chamber musician and has recorded in many guises, from classical CDs with the Nash Ensemble to movie soundtracks such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. As a soloist, she has played concertos with orchestras such as the Halle, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the London Symphony Orchestra. Rebecca is also committed to teaching and is a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, as well as running the Dorset Cello Classes, a course embracing both conservatory level and amateur cellists. (www.thedorsetcelloclasses.co.uk.) Rebecca is fairly obsessed with her dogs, enjoys kayaking, and harbours a guilty love of Formula One racing.
Composer, arranger – Rachel Stott.
Rachel Stott lives and works in London, UK. She attended Wells Cathedral School and read music at Churchill College, Cambridge, taking composition classes with Hugh Wood and Robin Holloway. She then pursued postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying viola with David Takeno and Michaela Comberti, but also managing to infiltrate classes in composition, ethnomusicology, jazz and early music, thus gaining a broader education than was perhaps intended by the establishment.
Rachel has pursued a career as violist and composer, performing with both contemporary and early music ensembles and writing for a diverse range of instruments, including viols, cornetts and sackbuts, lutes, ocarinas, viola d’amore and baryton, as well as the more conventional instruments of the modern orchestra. She has composed song cycles, string quartets, chamber music works, orchestral works and an opera for children, The Cuckoo Tree, based on the book by Joan Aiken. Her music has been performed at the London South Bank, Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, festivals across the UK, and in continental Europe, North America and Japan. A record-breaking work, Odysseus in Ogygia, for an ensemble of six violas d’amore, was presented at the 2012 Viola d’amore Congress in Innsbruck, and in the same year Several World, for massed saxophones, was performed at the World Saxophone Congress in St Andrews, Scotland. Ideas for Rachel’s compositions have come from a wide range of sources: historical, artistic, literary, scientific and medical.
Rachel is the viola player of the Revolutionary Drawing Room, the Bach Players, the duo Sopriola (soprano and viola d’amore). She also teaches school age children in north London.Aside from her professional work Rachel enjoys walking, swimming, baking and reading. She attends an adult education class in Ancient Greek and recently learned how to pluck a goose. In 2025 we hope to be hearing several of Rachel’s original compositions at Worlds End Music.
UPCOMING CONCERTS!
Harp and Flute – probable date, 27th March, St Martin-of-Tours, 7pm
Gwenllian Llyr, Harp
Welsh harpist Gwellian Llyr is gaining international recognition for her charistmatic and engaging performances. She was twice a prize-winner at the USA International Harp Competition in Bloomington and has also won man prizes more locally, at the Royal Overseas League in London, as well as becoming an artist with City Music Foundation in 2017. Gwenllian was a star in our charity concert, Save The Spire and is coming back to present an evening of music for flute and harp.
Gwellian’s career has already taken her across the globe with performances at venues including St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Buckingham Palace, Carnegie Hall – and now – St Martin-of-Tours! She has performed alongside renowed artists such as jazz legend Al Jarreau, pianist Imogen Cooper and the international opera singer, Bryn Terfel. Following the successful release of her debut solo album, ‘Dusk to Dawn’, in which her playing was hailed as ‘magnificent’ and ‘powerful’, Gwellian has recently released a CD of all-Welsh music, WIth Ty Cerdd. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, the Julliard School and the Royal Welsh College, Gwenllian is now currently based in London where she is enjoyin a busy and varied freelance career, both performing and teaching. Gwellian lives in Orpington – she will be popping home between rehearsal and concert to see her young family!
Sirius Chau, Flute.
Winner of the Royal Over-Seas League Competition, Hong-Kong-born flautist Sirius Chau is the Young Artist of Making Music, Tillett Trust, Talent Unlimited and Musicus Society. He received the Tagore Gold Medal from HRH The Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Scholarship in 2019; and made his solo debuts at the Wigmore Hall and Bridgewater Hall in the same year. Recent orchestral experience includes working with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera and City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. Sirius studied at the Royal College of Music with Katie Bedford, Emer McDonough and Sue Thomas. Photo to follow!
Virtuoso Violins, St Martin’s.
(Postponed from November 11th, date tbc)
Naoko Keatley, Violin
Naoko made her debut performance as soloist with the Sydney Youth Orchestra at the age of eight an has since performed in venues around the world, including the Wigmore Hall, Sydney Opera House and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Naoko began playing the piano at an extraordinarily precocious 2 years old, when she was living in Japan. When she moved to Australia at the age of four, she began learning the violin using the Suzuki method. She joined the LSO in 2014, having been in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for five years prior, and also has a busy freelance career. Naoko has a young family and is married to a trumpeter, Niall, who is in the BBC Symphony Orchestra – we must get him in for a concert soon! Naoko never feels the cold, despite moving from Australia, and also never stops smiling!
Alix Lagasse – violin.
Born in Antwerp in 1991, Alix also began the violin, aged 3, with the Suzuki method, following in the footsteps of her elder sister. Her violin teacher told her he would put her on top of his living room table during her lessons, in order not to break his back while he was teaching her as she was so tiny! Her first violin was a well put together biscuit box with a ruler as the fingerboard and a wooden spatular as her bow!
Having progressed somewhat from those early days, Alix graduated from the Artist Diploma Course at the Royal College of Music, where she studid with Itzhak Rashovsky. She was awarded the Worshipful Musicians Company Silver Medal for her outstanding musical achievements and her ongoing dedication to the RCM, where she taught at the junior department for many years. Alix has won several prizes in international competitions and became a laureate in the Lions European Musical Competition. She was also the first prize winner in the Belgian Dexia Classics competition and with her duo partner Maria Tarasewicz, Alix continues to gives recitals across the UK and Europe. Alix is one of the few musicians to play for Worlds End Music who doesn’t live locally, but despite her deciding to get a new place in West London, we’ll still forgive her and give her a nice BR6 welcome!
St Martin-of-tours on a sunny afternoon…
Recent performers for past Worlds End Music concerts…
Gary Ryan – classical guitar.
The British guitarist Gary Ryan made his London recital debut for the Park Lane Group Young Artists Series on London’s South Bank in 1994 and has since pursued a highly varied career as a performer, composer, teacher and examiner.Gary studied as a junior at the Guildhall School of Music, later winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in 1987. In 1991 he graduated with first class honours and many awards including the Julian Bream Prize and the John Mundy String Prize and was made an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1997.
In 2013 he became the first guitarist since John Williams in 1983 to be awarded a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music, where he has been recently been appointed Head of Strings. He is also well known for his many guitar compositions, arrangements and examination pieces, which include his acclaimed solo work Benga Beat, Play Piazzolla for Boosey & Hawkes, Scenes from the Wild West for Camden Music London and Guitar Star for the ABRSM.In 2016 Gary Ryan was invited by John Williams to form 6 Hands, a collaborative guitar trio with the jazz guitarist John Etheridge which has toured the UK extensively, including performances at Kings Place, Bridgewater Hall, Snape Maltings and St. George’s Bristol. Gary’s concert for Worlds End Music last season raised over £825 for Peanut Ward, East Grinstead Hospital.
Clare Duckworth – Violin
Clare Duckworth studied with Richard Deakin at the Junior School of the RNCM and Mateja Marinkovic and Hugh Bean at the Royal Academy of Music. Having been lucky to receive fantastic training in the National Children’s Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and European Union Youth Orchestra, all of which she led, Clare went on to hold jobs with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the London Philharmonic (Co-Principal Second Violin) and the Royal Philharmonic (Principal First Violin) before joining the LSO as Sub-Principal First Violin in 2014.
She has coached the violin sections of the NYO, the EUYO and London’s RAM, RCM and GSMD, and served for three years as one of the LSO’s Vice Chairs. When not performing, Clare can usually be found in a book shop, an art gallery, or more recently, ice-climbing in the Himalaya….!
Gillianne Haddow – Viola
Gillianne is originally from Scotland and now lives in Beckenham with her husband (also a viola player and Worlds End Music alumni!) and extended family. She is the Co-Principal violist of the London Symphony Orchestra, joining just in time to record the soundtrack to Star Wars the Phantom Menace. For several years she combined her position within the orchestra with that of principal viola in the acclaimed Scottish Ensemble. Gillianne has attracted solo commissions from composers such as Sally Beamish and Edward Maguire and has appeared as guest principal with the Hebrides Ensemble and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. She enjoys the flexibility of combining her LSO work with studio work, recording movies, and small chamber music concerts. Gillianne plays on an 1812 Rivolta viola, lent to her by the LSO. Her talented sons include Scott Storey, who has appeared at Worlds End Music in our The Seasons concert and Samuel, who is studying composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Karen Jones – flute
Karen Jones is equally well known as a concerto soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, teacher and orchestral player, and is in constant demand by composers and conductors alike. She is the fifth generation of a family of professional musicians and was a member of the European Community Youth Orchestra by the age of 15. Subsequent successes include winning the woodwind section of the BBC TV competition Young Musician of the Year, and later the Gold Medal for the Shell/London Symphony Orchestra prize.
Karen has played as guest principal flute with all of London’s top orchestras and ensembles, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia and London Sinfonietta. She has also played with the World Orchestra for Peace and was thrilled to be invited to play at the royal weddings of both Prince William and Prince Harry. She is the principal flute of the London Chamber Orchestra and the City of London Sinfonia. However, you are most likely to have heard Karen on film soundtrack as she has recorded over 500 movies, many at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios. Karen lives just up the hill on one of the tree roads
Sarah Thurlow – clarinet
Originally from Bromley and still living there, Sarah Thurlow has been working as a freelance clarinettist since 1998. She studied at the Royal College of Music (RCM) with Robert Hill, Michael Harris and Andrew Marriner. An English-Speaking Union scholarship enabled her to attend the Aspen Music School in Colorado as a pupil of Theodore Oien, and the RCM Mills Williams Junior Fellowship led to further study with Hans Deinzer in Italy and masterclasses with Sabine Meyer in Weimar.
She has performed concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra and has given recitals at the Purcell Room, The Bridgewater Hall and St John’s Smith Square. She has appeared in the clarinet sections of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She founded the ensemble Contemporary Consort in 1998 and is a founder member of London Serenata.
Jo Stark – bassoon
Joanna’s main enthusiasm is for orchestral playing, which began during her time as a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Whilst enjoying a busy schedule freelancing with ensembles including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Joanna also enjoys her work teaching at the Junior Royal Academy of Music and coaching the bassoons in the National Children’s Orchestra.
Carmine Laurie – Violin
“I listen to music all the time. If I don’t listen to music it is playing in my head, I can’t stop it! The only time I don’t listen to music is when I’m asleep (if I’m lucky)!”
Carmine is the Co-Leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, joining the orchestra during his final year of study at the Royal Academy of Music. From Malta, Carmine is guest concertmaster of the Malta Philharmonic, where he often returns to play concertos, and leader of the Oxford Philharmonic. He has also appeared as guest leader with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, among many others. Carmine has played concertos with many international orchestras including the LSO, LPO, Czech Philharmonic and the Guanajuato Symphony in Mexico.
He is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music and was made an Associate and Fellow of the Academy for his achievements in his career. Carmine’s talents were acknowledged by his country of Malta, which bestowed upon him the National Order of Merit.
Andy Harper, Clarinet.
Orpington resident Andy Harper leads a varied career as a freelance musician. Having left Australia at age 21, he has previously held positions in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. He is now seen regularly with many of the UK’s leading ensembles such as the LSO, BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
At home in a variety of musical styles, Andy’s musical experience away from classical music includes performing with artists such as Kool and the Gang, Joe Cocker, Harry Connick Junior, Nat Adderley and DJ Pete Tong. When not performing, Andy is often found teaching Clarinet and Saxophone at multiple local schools or watching his beloved Australian Cricket team.
Nina Kiva – cello, WEM Young Artist.
Ukrainian British cellist Nina Kiva is currently studying at the Royal College of Music towards an Artist Diploma Degree, with Melissa Phelps. She is supported by a Jag & Linda Arora Scholarship and the Tillett Trust, including a generous legacy from the Bill Barclay fund, and the Colin Keer Trust.
As an orchestral player, Nina has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bath Festival Orchestra, English National Opera and the Royal Opera House. She is a current trialist with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Recently, Nina was selected for the apprenticeship scheme with the Budapest Festival Orchestra by Ivan Fischer.
She is an experienced chamber musician, and has performed in many concert halls across the UK and internationally. She recently performed alongside Steven Isserlis at the Stauffer Centre for Strings in Italy. Nina has been invited to the 2022 Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, which takes part in Vermont, USA.
WEM Young Artist, Scott Storey
We’re delighted to welcome back Scott Storey, talented son of Gillianne, who is currently in his 2nd year of study at the Royal College of Music. A hugely talented and versatile musician, Scott is currently studying both violin and viola and will be demonstrating his skills on both instruments for this concert. Scott played a memorable concert for Worlds End Music in our very first group of concerts, back in 2021, when he performed Winter, from Vivaldi’s Seasons. Before he began studying at the Royal College of Music, Scott was honoured to be concertmaster of the prestigious National Youth Orchestra. Now focusing mainly on viola, we’ve persuaded Scott to play both instruments for us tonight!