Staff A-Z

Throughout his career as a violinist he has collaborated with an eclectic range of different artists: Gavin Bryars, Laurie Anderson, Aidan Love, Roma and Bluegrass musicians and projects for Boy George, Mick Jagger and Martin Green. He has specialised in folk and traditional music from across Europe, which is an inspiration for CD releases. As a composer he has created many works for the theatre and opera, including the National Theatre, Opera North and the Berlin Ensemble. This has a led to a specialism in cross-disciplinary performance and exploring cultural and artistic boundaries resulting in commissions in Romania, Japan and China.

As well as being a cultural commentator, Joe regularly speaks at conferences on collaboration, pedagogy, audience development and social entrepreneurship. He consults on early career survival for emerging artists with Serious Productions, Help Musicians UK and English Folk Expo and running courses for the V&A Innovative Leadership Programme.

Founder of Seasonal Sessions UK, Poppy has created an intensive dance training program that runs once a month in Cardiff and Bristol, providing the South West cities of the UK with further opportunities in dance.

As well as teaching Hip Hop on Trinity Laban’s CAT program, Poppy has taught for higher education programs including the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, London Studio Centre and Shockout Academy. Poppy has recently become an official judge for the British Dance Organisation and 101 dance competitions.

Committed to dance education, Poppy strives to inspire young people to not only fulfil their passions and potential to perform, but for them to also explore their own artistry and creative choices alongside her own as a choreographer.

Vivian is a London-based freelance dance artist from Greece. She graduated with a 1st class BA degree in contemporary dance from Trinity Laban in 2015 and continued as a chosen member of the’ Akram Khan Experiment’ and then Jasmin Vardimon 2 where she performed a national tour.

She has performed for Jose Agudo Dance & Theatre Rites, WenHsin Lee & Elgiva Field, Vinicius Salles, Fernanda Prata, Ben Judd/Dionysios Tsaftaridis, Melanie Lomoff (Lowry and Rambert project), Follow Through collective, Hagit Yakira as well as acting as her rehearsal director for Royal Albert hall, and others. She has curated, performed and choreographed for Museum of London. She works as a dance artist for Alleyne Dance.

She was nominated for an Off West End best performer award alongside the rest of the cast for their performance for Theatre Rites & Jose Agudo.
Passionate about teaching, Vivian shares her expertise with professionals, adults, young people and dance companies. She has taught for: Rambert, The Place, Laban, Royal Academy of Dance, English National ballet, National Dance Company of Wales and others. She has founded two workshops: ‘Energy and Flow’ a professional contemporary dance workshop and ‘Movement Waves’ a community improvisation workshop.

Her choreography has received support from Arts Council England, TripSpace, Dancce Athens, and others. Vivian has created a group piece ‘Ego Mas,’ the duet ‘Greener Grass,’ and the film ‘I Am.’ She has also directed movement for films and choreographed for various commissions, earning awards for solo performances in competitions.

Since her debut in 2012 with Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, Lana Trotovšek has appeared with some of the world’s finest orchestras. In 2014, she toured with Moscow Soloists and Yuri Bashmet, and she recently performed Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.1 with The London Symphony Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda. Her 2015-16 schedule included performances with Orchestra Teatro Verdi under Tan Dun, as well as playing with the Slovenian, Shanghai, Sarajevo, and Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestras, the RTV Slovenia, the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, where she was described as “an emerging voice to watch” by Philadelphia Inquirer.

Trotovšek has performed at some of the most prestigious venues, including the Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw in Eindhoven. Her talent has taken her beyond Europe to perform in China, Japan, the UAE, Canada, the USA and she has performed with many eminent conductors such as George Pehlivanian, Hans Graf, Uroš Lajovic, Barry Wordsworth, Andres Mustonen and others.

She has also featured as an artist at renowned international festivals including Rheingau, Aix-en-Provence, Shanghai International Arts Festival, Festival Internacional de Santander, Emilia Romagna, Ljubljana, Dubrovnik, Bad Kissingen, St Magnus International and Aldeburgh.

Trotovšek was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to a family of musicians. At the age of four, she began playing the violin under the guidance of Majda Jamsek. When she was 17 years old, her prodigious talent was recognised by Ruggiero Ricci, who mentored her at the Academy Mozarteum in Salzburg. During this period, she continued her studies at the Academy of Music, University of Ljubljana with Volodja Balzalorsky and Primoz Novsak. In 2005, her passion and skill was rewarded with the Prešeren Award, the highest university award for arts in Slovenia, following her performance of the Khachaturian Violin Concerto with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of George Pehlivanian.

From 2006-2011, she was a member of the Greenwich Piano Trio with cellist Stjepan Hauser and pianist Yoko Misumi. They won the Solti Foundation Award, The Tunnell Trust Award and other first prizes in chamber music competitions across Europe. They were guided by the Beaux Arts Trio cellist Bernard Greenhouse and pianist Menahem Pressler as well as Stephen Kovachevich.

Trotovšek continued her studies at Trinity College of Music with Vasko Vassilev, Boris Brovtsyn and Rivka Golani and at the London’s Royal College of Music with Itzhak Rashkovsky, winning many international prizes. From 2011-13, she was the leading violinist of the Badke String Quartet, winners of the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.

Lana Trotovšek lives in London and is a professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she completed her postgraduate studies in 2009. She maintains close ties to her home country, where she performs regularly, and is a visiting assistant Professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. She plays the 1750 Pietro Antonio dalla Costa violin.

In May 2020, concurrent with the completion of a new film of the Goldberg Variations (recorded in the Long Room Library of Trinity College Dublin) he was named Founding Fellow of the Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship awarded by the City of Weimar. As the joint creator of the Fellowship, he was appointed Founding Fellow in order to establish the Fellowship parameters, and through direct experience, to set its project milestones. He has since completed a series of innovative recordings and films exploring different perspectives on the late works of Johann Sebastian Bach – with the complete collection presented in September 2021 at a special exhibition featured in the Kessler Rooms of the State Museum of Weimar. He was afterwards named Custodian of the Fellowship in 2021.

As a concerto soloist, he has worked with many renowned conductors from Andrei Boreyko to Courtney Lewis, from Colman Pearce to Gerhard Markson – with classical concerti forming a key part of his repertoire. At the same time, as a devoted chamber musician, he has collaborated with numerous artists, from Hakan Hardenberger to the Vanbrugh String Quartet, from Pekka Kuusisto to singers such as Robin Tritschler and Claudia Boyle. He was one of the regular artists that attended the International Piano Week in Montepulciano, Tuscany, and continues to engage in innovative projects that explore the repertoire in unique and path-breaking ways. Notable amongst these, is his recent project around the Art of Fugue, scheduled for completion in 2024, which involves multiple kinds of technical innovation.

With the Canadian composer and pianist Douglas Finch, he co-founded the New Lights Festival in London in 2018 – a major festival devoted to contemporary currents in music. The festival explores ideas of newness – from unique collaborations to new compositions, from innovative performance approaches to improvisatory works. The festival has continually expanded since its inception; and for this season (2024), in addition to those performances taking place at the historic King Charles Court at the Old Royal Naval College, performances will also take place at both the Cutty Sark in Greenwich and at the Albany Theatre in Deptford.

In 2023, he also started the New Lights Forum – which involves in-depth interviews with artists and intellectuals and for which he serves as principal curator. Arising from his engagement with documentary form, he released Fugal Travels in 2020 – a contrapuntal radio documentary work which weaves together the voices of six eminent experts speaking about the music of JS Bach. The structure of the work was inspired by the six-part ricercare from the Musical Offering, using some of textures as an model for its construction.

In 2020 he became a Loubser Fellow – joining a small number of internationally acclaimed artists. While in 2022, he was appointed Lead Curator of the new digital exhibition space, PLF Projects & Artefacts. The design-faze for this new initiative has just been recently completed and is set to be unveiled in the spring of 2024. The projects and artefacts on the site are presented in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional formats; with the latter presented as a digital gallery space, where people can explore the projects in a more interactive way.

Educated at Trinity College Dublin, the University of Oxford and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, he subsequently went on to become Head of the Keyboard Faculty of the Royal Irish Academy of Music – one of the youngest such appointments in its 175-year history. Between 2015 and 2018, he was Head of Piano and Keyboard Instruments at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London and while continuing to serve on the faculty of both these institutions, was appointed Full Titled Professor of the RIAM in June 2021.

He has given master classes around the world – from the United Kingdom to China, from Italy to Japan, from the United States to South Korea, and many other countries besides. Whilst, since 2016, he has served on numerous occasions, as External Specialist for the Royal College of Music in London and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow.

From his longstanding interest in literature, he produced his first poetry collection which was highly commended in the 2015 Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Awards. In more recent years, he has developed new hybrid works, featuring poetic declamation and drama accompanied by ancient instruments. The first of these was completed in 2023 and is scheduled for its premiere in London on June 22nd, 2024.

James has released solo recordings for Toccata Classics, Champs Hill Records, Quartz Music and the ABRSM as well as featuring on a disc of Thea Musgrave’s works for Harmonia Mundi USA. Gramophone Magazine described his debut recital disc, Fierce Tears, as a “notable debut”, and it was selected as the Editor’s Choice Recording by Classical Music Magazine. Most recently, the Royal Academy of Music recognised his contribution to the music profession by awarding him an ARAM.

James is deeply committed to expanding the oboe repertoire. He has worked closely with Michael Berkeley, John Casken, Jonathan Dove, John Woolrich, Thea Musgrave and Tansy Davies on their compositions for oboe. In 2015, James launched the New Oboe Music Project (NewOboeMusic.org) which promotes 21st century oboe repertoire across the world.

James is also founder of the Léon Goossens Prize for Emerging Composers to help encourage a new generation of composers to write for the oboe.

As part of this project, James has curated a special collection of previously unpublished oboe repertoire in partnership with Composers Edition. James also has a keen interest in researching lost repertoire and bringing to new audiences works which have been rarely performed. In 2011, he worked closely with Christopher Hogwood in preparation for a new edition of Thomas Attwood Walmisley’s Sonatinas for Oboe and Piano.

James is an active chamber musician and is Artistic Director of Ensemble Perpetuo. Founded in 2013, Perpetuo is a chamber music collective that specialises in multi-art form collaborations and innovative ways of performing chamber music in new contexts. James has also performed with other chamber music ensembles, including the Berkeley Ensemble and the Allegri String Quartet.

Aside from his performing interests, James is dedicated to broadening the appeal of the oboe and encouraging young people to learn the instrument. To this end, he has launched the website LearnToPlayTheOboe.com which now receives over a thousand new visitors every month from across the world. James also teaches at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and gives masterclasses across Europe. In recognition of his work in music education, James was awarded the inaugural Patricia Prindl Prize by the Musicians’ Company in 2016.

James plays a Lorée Oboe and Cor Anglais supplied by Crowthers of Canterbury. For more information about James and his playing, visit www.james-turnbull.com.

Meanwhile his reputation as a teacher has taken him to Pesaro, Rostov on Don, Buenos Aires, Melbourne and Wellington. He is in demand for juries of major international compétitions and as External Examiner in major Conservatoires throughout Britain.

He assisted Betty Bannerman whose French Song class at the RNCM was inspired by her years of study with Claire Croiza, a singer who had performed with Honegger, Poulenc and Duparc.

Christopher’s principal as performer and teacher is that learning to sing should have as a priority not only how the voice works, but why we do it at all!

As a performer, Lilli has toured the UK to Jazz Festivals in Cheltenham and Manchester, and venues including Birmingham Symphony Hall Foyer. Other performances include Ronnie Scott’s, Southbank Centre, Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, Shambala Festival UK, 55 Bar in New York, Rotterdam’s A Festival Downtown, and Brainchild Festival. Lilli was one of 14 artists to be selected for a residency with Mercury Prize-nominated artist ESKA.

As part of the acclaimed choir London Vocal Project, she performed in the world première of Jon Hendricks’ Miles Ahead in New York, produced by Quincy Jones, as well as performances with Dave Holland, Norma Winstone, Nikki Illes, New York Voices, and the Swingle Singers.

In addition to writing, performing, recording, and collaborating, Lilli’s educational work is vast; including vocal coaching, choir leading & workshop facilitation. Clients include community members in her choir Our Voice Choir to professional singer songwriters. Alongside graduating from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, with a TCM Trust Silver Medal in Jazz, Lilli undertakes regular training and professional development including courses in Kodály, production & Vocal Health First Aid accreditation. Her approach is about unlocking the potential she sees in others, building skills, and enabling them to find their vocal/creative freedom.

He is a member of the award-winning Solem Quartet– praised for their ‘“immaculate precision and spirit” (The Strad) and recognized as one of the most innovative and adventurous quartets of its generation. Much in demand as a chamber musician, he has also shared the stage with artists such as Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Tai Murray, the JACK Quartet, Gary Hoffman, Jess Gillam, Elena Urioste, Jennifer Stumm, and Garth Knox. Recent engagements have taken him to The Paris Philharmonie, London’s Barbican, Wigmore and Royal Festival Halls, Tokyo Opera City, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw and Concertgebouw.

A noted interpreter of contemporary music, Stephen is also a member of London’s Riot Ensemble  – winners of the inaugural Ernst von Siemens Foundation Ensemble Prize and cited as “the supergroup of top soloists playing new music” (Guardian) “volcanically creative” (The New Yorker), and “Always impeccable; entrancing and highly seductive” (The Times).

He has worked closely with many of today’s leading composers, including Chaya Czernowin, John Adams, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin and Helmut Lachenmann. Expanding the repertoire of the viola through the commissioning of new music has always been a feature of Stephen’s work. He has taken part in over 300 world premieres including chamber music of Georg Haas, Sally Beamish (alongside the composer), Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Edmund Finnis and solo works of Mark Simpson, Simon Holt, Oliver Leith, Michael Finnissy and Errollyn Wallen.

Stephen has recently appeared as soloist with the Vaasa City Orchestra (Finland) and in recital at the Time of Music, Brighton and Little Missenden Festivals, Kettle’s Yard, and the National Gallery.

He has also toured regularly to the USA, Europe and Asia with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and its music director, Joshua Bell and has been invited to play guest principal viola with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Klangforum Wien (Austria), Ensemble Modern (Germany), Britten Sinfonia, Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra (Sweden), Aurora Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, The Ulster Orchestra and Manchester Camerata, among others.

A highly sought-after teacher, he has given masterclasses at institutions including Cambridge University, Trinity Laban, the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music (Poland), Royal College of Music Stockholm, Cardiff University, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Vanderbilt University, Liverpool University, University of Georgia and University of Michigan.

Stephen also serves on the faculty of Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival Academy where he co-curates the annual ‘Festival Forward’. In recent years, he has been invited to adjudicate the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and the Royal Overseas League Competition.

He has also published technique articles in Strad Magazine and was a featured guest on BBC Radio 3’s “This Classical Life”.

In 2007 Paola was awarded a Yamaha Jazz Award for outstanding young Jazz musicians in association with Jazzwize magazine. She has since gone on to receive several awards as a singer and accompanist, including winning 2nd place in the Jazz Voices International competition in Lithuania in 2011 and first place for Improvisation. She has performed alongside many greats of the international jazz scene including Bobby McFerrin, Liz Wright, Norma Winstone, Kenny Wheeler etc.. She has released and toured several albums of her own original songs and continues to works on multiple cowriting projects in many different genres.
Paola’s live performances have been seen on the most prestigious festival stages, concert halls and jazz clubs worldwide including Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club (London), The 606 club (London), Pizza Express Dean Street (London), The New Morning (Paris) Nardis (Istanbul), also having toured multiple festival stages across France, Europe and the United States.

Paola currently works with several higher-education institutions across Europe and the UK including as Professor for Jazz and Pop Voice at the Conservatoire of Bordeaux and Assistant professor of Jazz Voice at the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels. Paola is also a certified Estill Master Trainer (EMT) and is among few bilingual French speaking coaches delivering Estill courses in French and English across Europe. She also organises The International Singing and Songwriting Retreat, a residential Songwriting course held in France, teaching alongside esteemed educator and singer pianist Pete Churchill.

As well as her own band Andrea often tours with ‘Jazz Extempore’ a European quartet which combines the jazz idiom with the folk influences of Eastern Europe. Recent tours have included performances in Italy, Croatia, Bosnia- Herzogovina and Bulgaria. Andrea performed in China at the prestigious 3rd Maritime Silk Road Art Festival 2017 with Croatian guitar virtuoso Elvis Stanic – the only UK musician to perform at the festival.

A prolific composer, she has been commissioned by the Arts Council, the BBC, Jazz Umbrella, the Peter Whittingham Trust, Teignmouth Jazz Festival and completed a setting of the poetry of A.E Housman for the Ludlow festival, released on the CD New Perspectives. Other projects include The Leasowes Bank festival;  ‘Women in Jazz project’ held at the ‘Hideaway Jazz Club’ during the London Jazz Festival; Scoring the Chet Baker “Speedball” musical and co-composing a new musical “The Austerity Playbook” plus and a funded residency at Lyth Arts Centre, Wick, Scotland. The BBC recently recorded Andrea for a live album with South African trumpet virtuoso Claude Deppa at the Ipswich Jazz Festival.

Andrea is also a well known and respected jazz educator holding a senior lecturer post and professorship at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of music and dance (jazz). She is musical director and founder of the highly successful ‘Dordogne International Jazz Summer School’ and was a judge on the ‘Nottingham International jazz piano competition’ and the University of South Africa International Piano competition in Pretoria. Andrea is currently part of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra Ambassadors jazz education project presenting workshops in schools nationwide. She instigated a Young Women’s jazz education taster day at Trinity following research project and feature article in Music Teacher magazine. Andrea has taught jazz and jazz piano at Pimlico Academy for twenty eight years – formerly the prestigious Pimlico Special Music Course – alumni including Antonio Pappanno (Royal Opera House), Django Bates, Andrew McCormack, Artie Zeitz, David Okumu etc. Andrea has published “A-Rhythm-A-Tik” a compendium of multi-level original jazz pieces for adult learners and teenagers; accompanied by a series of online video lessons.

Andrea Vicari presents a weekly show on JazzLondonRadio.com called “JazzDoodles” where she has interviewed many legends of jazz such as John Taylor; Peter Erskine; Hiromi; JohnAbercrombie; Omar Puente; Bill Stewart; Jonathan Kreisberg; Marc Copland; Antonio Serrano etc.

Rahel is a certified Body-Mind Centering practitioner and holds an MA in Arts: The Body in Performance. She teaches dance, improvisation and performance practice for different organisations in the UK and abroad. At the moment she is a guest lecturer at Trinity Laban, teaching contemporary technique (BA) and choreography (MA). 2016 she was acting artistic director of Transitions, MA in Performance, and in 2017 acting head for the MA Choreography at Trinity Laban.

Rahel has worked in collaborative contexts, amongst others, with dancer/choreographer Wally Cardona (NY), filmmaker Ruth Schlaepfer (CH) and company Pool (CH).
For over 20 years she worked, amongst others with Rosemary Butcher, Iztok Kovac (for film), Philippe Gehmacher, Charles Linehan, Liz Roche Cie, Ricochet Dance Company.