Jeremy West (cornett) is one of the world’s leading cornettists, with more than twenty five years of top class playing experience, both as a soloist and as a guest artist in Europe’s foremost early Baroque ensembles. He has two solo CDs to his credit and leads the wind section of Britain’s Gabrieli Consort and Players. In addition, Jeremy is professor of cornett at London’s Royal College of Music and Director of
Jamie Savan (cornett) began playing the cornett in 1996 while reading Music at St Anne’s College, Oxford. He subsequentlystudied with Jeremy West at the Royal College of Music in London, funded by a Leverhulme studentship; and with Bruce Dickey at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, with the aid of scholarships from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund. Jamie has also recently completed a doctorate in Performance Practice at the University of Birmingham. Jamie has been a busy freelance musician since 1997 and is in demand as a player of treble and tenor cornetts with many groups in the UK and continental Europe. He began his association with His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts in 2003, and became a full member of the ensemble in 2005. Jamie teaches cornett at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and at the University of Birmingham, where he also lectures in Baroque Performance Practice.
Adam in graduated in 1997 from the Royal Academy of Music where he is now a visiting professor of baroque trombone. Adam is a keen exponent of the many guises of historical trombone playing. His enthusiasm has led him to partake in recordings and concerts all over the world with some of today's finest exponents of early music. His work can be heard on over 3 dozen recordings covering a repertoire spanning over 200 years, recent projects have included recording the sonatas of Dario Castello, virtuosic chamber music by Matthias Weckmann, Schmelzer and Biber and early 15th century playing techniques.
As well as his work at the Royal Academy or Music in London, Adam teaches regularly on international early music courses including Wim Becu’s Academia Giovanni Gabrieli in Belgium and the Newark Early Music Course with Jamie Savan in the UK. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music in London and given masterclasses in Sweden, Israel, and a course for renaissance brass playing on an organic cattle farm in Southern Germany! Adam is not only active as a teacher of the sackbut but also teaches brass at the British School in Antwerp.Adam is principal trombone with Sir John Eliot Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. He is also principal trombone of The Kings Consort with whom he recently performed the Leopold Mozart concerto. Adam’s regular chamber music activities include projects as co-artistic director of His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, and as a member of the QuintEssential Sackbut and Cornett Ensemble and the Caecilia-Concert.
He is currently part of the production “VSPRS”, a ballet based upon Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 which is touring world-wide with Alain Platel’s Ballet C de la B, Oltremontano and Aka Moon in which he is exploiting among other things the possibilities of contemporary jazz improvisation on the sackbut!
Abigail Newman (alto & tenor sackbut) also joined HMSC in 1997. She studied at the Guildhall School, and at the Royal College of Music, London, where she specialised in Baroque trombone and its repertoire. Abigail has since been in great demand with many leading ensembles in the UK.
Stephen Saunders won an Exhibition to Trinity College of Music and afterwards studied at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama 1969 to 1972 under Denis Wick. Whilst at The Guildhall he developed his ability to double on all the low brass: Euphonium, Tuba and Bass Trombone. An interest in early music led him to take up the Bass Sackbut as well as becoming one of the first to join the "authentic" movement on a variety of what were then obsolete instruments. A founder member of such ensembles as The London Classical Players, Age of Enlightenment and The Academy of Ancient Music he and his fellow trombone players revived a menagerie of narrow and large bore trombones, serpents, ophicleides, valve Trombones and buccines in what has turned out to be the heyday of recording when every piece of classical music was re-recorded in a digital format for the new Compact Disc.
Stephen was for many years a session musician being first call for all of London's contractors and playing every type of music in TV and recording studios. Many famous recording artists have Stephen on their recordings from Michael Nyman to Julie Andrews, Pink Floyd to Paul McCartney, Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson, Elton John and The Carpenters. He worked with perhaps what are now considered the benchmark film composers: Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith. He played with The Philip Jones Brass Ensemble and London Symphony Brass Ensemble. As well as appearing as Principal Bass Trombone with all the major symphony orchestras and Opera houses in Great Britain he has also managed to fit in 18 years with The National Philharmonic Orchestra which was London's premier recording orchestra, specialising in film and commercial music as well as recording huge operas each year with Pavaroti, Domingo, Joan Sutherland et al .
Still with a very varied musical diet he is currently a member of the Amsterdam-based Orchestra of the 18th Century, Orchestra Romantic e Revolutionaire, London Baroque Soloists and in 1992 took the position of principal Bass Trombone with The BBC Symphony Orchestra
Gary Cooper (Keyboards) Gary studied organ and harpsichord at Chetham’s School of Music, the John Loosemore Centre, and was an organ scholar at New College, Oxford. Between 1992 & 2000, he was a member of the highly-acclaimed baroque ensemble Sonnerie, with whom he performed regularly throughout Europe and the United States, and recorded frequently on both disc and radio. Gary predominantly makes appearances as soloist, director, accompanist, and chamber musician. He also performs regularly with ensembles such as The King’s Consort and Concordia. Gary is musical director of The New Chamber Opera and The Band of the Instruments, whose past productions have included Britten’s Turn of the Screw, Handel’s Xerxes, Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto and Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Forthcoming recordings with ASV include a project to record Vivaldi’s complete Cantatas, and Charpentier’s complete stage works composed for the Comédie-Française; the Band of Instruments is currently early music ensemble-in-residence at Oxford University. Gary was recently appointed musical director of Kent Opera.
Gary is now established as one of the foremost ambassadors of the harpsichord and fortepiano, and in particular, as an interpreter of Bach’s keyboard music. During 2000, he made his solo Wigmore Hall debut performing the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, and has since given many performances of both the WTC, and the Goldberg Variations, at venues throughout Europe, N. America & Asia. Gary has made many recordings, for radio, TV & on disc, including an award-winning CD of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book I, which was chosen as the Sunday Times Classical Record of the Year, 2000. He is also an established conductor, having worked with many ensembles – most recently Portland Baroque Orchestra in the USA. He has been Musical Director of Kent Opera since 2002, conducting performances of Britten’s Albert Herring and Handel's Acis & Galatea, will be conducting Handel’s Alcina for English Touring Opera during the latter part of 2005; and also appearing as soloist/director in performances of Mozart's Piano Concertos throughout the forthcoming season. His new duo partnership with violinist Rachel Podger commences, on disc, with this long-term project to record the complete Sonatas for Violin & Piano by Mozart – a project which has already attracted considerable critical interest & acclaim. During 2005 and 06, in addition to many concerts planned with Rachel, he will also be recording both Mozart & Beethoven's Variations on fortepiano, and performing Mozart's complete keyboard Sonatas in concert.
Gary was named "Best Newcomer in Classical Music, 2001" in the Times; and has been dubbed "a rising star in early music" (Observer), “something of a genius” (Times), and most recently, a Sunday Times critic declared “music-making rarely comes as impressive as this” in response to hearing a complete performance of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book II.