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Julie Dean gained her BMus degree in 1998 at Goldsmith College, London. In 2006, after a successful management career in retail and the licensed trade, she returned to music attending Trinity Conservatoire of Music. She spent four years as a postgraduate studying the recorder with Rebecca Miles and Philip Thorby as well as Viola da Gamba with Alison Crum. Julie has had recorder tuition, courses and masterclasses with Piers Adams, Pamela Thorby, Matthias Maute and Bart Spanhove. Julie is also interested in playing middle eastern percussion instruments. For a personal project she is researching the effects of hearing loss in musicians.
As a recorder player her past performances have included the Greenwich International Early Music Festival, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Handel House Museum, Southbank Centre, London Mozart Players, The Exmoor Singers of London and historical dance group The Renaissance Footnotes. She was a winner of the Trinity College of Music Early Music Competition in 2011 with Ensemble Tramontana, performing with the group at the Greenwich International Early Music Festival 2011. She performs regularly with the comedy and jazz influenced BRLO 'British Recorder Light Orchestra', Belsize Baroque Orchestra as well as many solo and ensemble performances.
Julie works actively with children and adult amateur recorder players, directs several weekly groups, offers individual tuition and conducts for the Society of Recorder Players. She teaches on the Easter Recorder Course in Derbyshire, Summer Recorder Festival in Cheltenham and NOVIS. She was also invited by the Société des Amis de Arnold Dolmetsch to teach amateur recorder players from across Europe in a workshop in Le Mans, France. One of the few UK teachers of the Suzuki method for the recorder for early years children, Julie has been a guest Suzuki teacher at a music school in Germany. She published 4 well researched volumes of 'Rounds for Recorders' aimed at adult recorder players and has also published a mini guidebook 'Looking after your wooden recorder'.
Julie also runs her online recorder shop, RecorderShopLondon.co.uk and has repaired and revoiced recorders for over 10 years. She has received training and guidance from recorder makers Tim Cranmore and Tom Prescott. She regularly delivers a presentation to help recorder players understand recorder maintenance and revoicing, including at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Birmingham conservatoire, and Encontro de Música Antiga de Loulé, Portugal. Julie is a professional member of NAMIR (National Association of Musical Instrument Repairers).
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Netty followed a career in social work before turning a passion for the recorder into a profession. In 2005 she was awarded a Masters Degree from the Royal College of Music, where she studied recorder with Ashley Solomon (early music), and Julien Feltrin (contemporary).
Netty's eagerness to promote her often misunderstood instrument is fundamental to all her work. Keen to encourage new writing for the recorder, Netty feels privileged that in 2024 she performed the premiere of a new Sonata for recorder and piano by Paul J Burrell, accompanied by the composer at the piano. Another favourite activity is the transcription and performance of little known English stage works of the later 18th Century, and with her Baroque ensemble My Lady's Chamber, Netty has brought about the modern premiere of a collection of pieces probably not heard for around 250 years. For a complete change of musical style, Netty can be heard improvising as part of Cuckooland House Band at WILLOWBROOK HOUSE in Peckham, every third Saturday of the month.
As an educator, Netty tries to inspire from the very beginning a love and respect for the recorder amongst primary and secondary age school children. To this end she founded and coordinates SWeet! Recorder Consort CIC, providing opportunities for young recorder players in Lambeth to perform together. In July 2022 Netty was delighted to speak about SWeet!’s work at the national Recorder In Education Conference in Birmingham.
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Recorder player and clarinettist Louise began her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and furthered her interest in early music by taking a Masters degree in Historical Musicology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She also studied Classical and Romantic orchestral performance at Abbaye aux Dames, Saintes, France.
Louise has freelanced with many high profile period instrument ensembles such as Gabrieli, English Concert, Boxwood and Brass and La Serenissima. Notable chamber music performances include touring with the French wind ensemble Philidor as well as playing in the basset horn trio, Clarino Ensemble. Louise is a founder member of the Baroque ensemble Concentus VII, whose second CD, Et in Arcadia Ego is available on the Resonus Classics label. Other recent recordings include Handel recorder obbligati with London Early Opera for and chalumeau in Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus with La Serenissima.
An experienced educator, she teaches at St. Pauls' Girls School, London and Unicorn School, Kew, Surrey. She is also an examiner for ABRSM.
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