Staff A-Z

Helen has been responsible for actor-training for the BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance course at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance since 2013.

Helen is a Lecturer, Director, Actor/Performer, Practitioner-Researcher and Visual Artist. As an educator, she has over 25 years’ experience in actor-training, course-development, academic supervision and theatre making in a combination of University and Conservatoire settings.

Widely regarded as a leading liturgical organist, improviser and choral director, Jonathan has been involved in music making at the Old Royal Naval College since 2016.

Born in Israel in 1967, Ofer studied with the legendary pedagogue Ilona Feher in Tel Aviv and later with Professor Dora Schwarzberg in Vienna. Isaac Stem, Pinchas Zukerman, Josef Gingold, Menahem Pressler and members of the Guarneri and the Borodin Quartet have also coached him. Ofer is now an associate professor of violin at Trinity Laban.

Much of his work has been as a chamber musician; first as leader and founder member of the Schidlof Quartet (1994-2001), and now as leader of the Falk Quartet (2001), performing with such artists as Murray Perahia and Jack Brymer. Ofer has performed as a soloist with most of the major Israeli Orchestras in the UK at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room. In Russia, Ofer has performed as a soloist and recitalist in most of the main venues, including the Bolshoi and Mali Saal in Moscow. Orchestral experience includes two years as leader of the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra (1996-1998), guest leading with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as well as frequently guest leading the English Chamber Orchestra. In February 2003, Ofer made his debut performance as soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra and was immediately reinvited for subsequent performances.

Douglas Finch was born in Winnipeg and began improvising, composing and performing on the piano from an early age with the help of his mother. He later continued studying with Winnifred Sim, Jean Broadfoot and at the University of Western Ontario with William Aide. After receiving a Masters from Juilliard in New York under Beveridge Webster, Douglas won several awards and was a finalist at the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels. After moving to London, he co-founded The Continuum Ensemble in 1994 and has collaborated in premiering many new works. He appears regularly with the ensemble at festivals including Spitalfields and at Southbank Centre, featuring composers such as Julian Anderson, Georges Aperghis, Henri Dutilleux, Charles Ives, Claude Vivier, Errollyn Wallen, Iannis Xenakis and many others. He has composed for piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, theatre and film and his score for the feature film Painted Angels was described in The Independent as “an extraordinary triumph of artistic will”.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Transcription and borrowing approaches in musical composition
• Overlapping working methods in improvising and composing
• Contemporary music practice / collaboration / curation
• Composing music for independent art films

Lars is a certified Feldenkrais practitioner, language coach, singer and researcher. He holds an MMus with Distinction in Vocal Performance from Trinity Laban, a BA in Music from the Lucerne School of Music and a BLaw from the University of Lucerne.

At Trinity Laban, he teaches Feldenkrais to the first-year vocal students on the BMus course as well as for Trinity Laban Health, and is the lead on Swedish and Scandinavian song projects for the Vocal Department.

Lars is currently a postgraduate researcher on the PhD programme at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, investigating the impacts of the Feldenkrais Method on classical singers. He has presented for the Association of Teachers of Singing (AOTOS) on Feldenkrais and singing teaching and specialises in this intersection.

As a performer, he has performed with Grand Théâtre de Genève, Longborough Festival Opera, Opera Holland Park, Savonlinna Opera Festival and other companies across the UK.

World renowned bassist Orlando le Fleming was born in Birmingham but spent most of his early childhood living in Exeter, Devon. Both of his parents are professional musicians; his mother a cellist and his father a composer. His first ambition was to become a professional cricketer, an aim that was realized when he played for five years in the minor counties. 

Lizzie Fort is a dance artist, researcher and educator based in Woolwich, SE London. She is driven by challenging assumptions about who dances, what dance looks like and where it takes place, championing artistic potential in everyone.

Andre is a Contemporary Dance Teacher, Creative Teacher and Tutor for the Centre for Advanced Training in Dance.

Before joining the faculty at Trinity Laban: Centre for Advanced Training as a Dance Teacher, André played Seaweed J Stubbs in Hairspray for The Grange Park: Pimlico Opera; and then simultaneously played Issachar in Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at The London Palladium – alongside Alexandra Burke, Linzi Hateley & Jason Donovan – and most recently played Richie Walters in the Made At Curve production of A Chorus Line. During this time, André was headhunted to join the Faculty at Trinity Laban: Music & Dance, as a freelance choreographer and as a Technique Lecturer on their Honours Programmes.

Aaron began his professional performance training at Laine Theatre Arts going on to perform across multiple genres in the West End and with touring companies across the UK and internationally. He continued his education to gain dance teaching status with the ISTD and BBO and holds an MA in Theatre for Community and Education. For over 20 years, he has taught at many of the leading UK vocational performing arts schools leading him to take on senior leadership roles and programme management.

Now, his focus is to innovate performance training, providing a platform for the next generation of performance artists. His commitment is rooted in nurturing the individual to enhance their personal talents and creative power.

Matt studied at the Royal College of Music, where he was awarded the Sabian Percussion Prize on graduation.

He was then accepted onto the prestigious Archer Scholarship, where he played with Bobby Lamb’s Trinity Big Band.

Since leaving the RCM, Matt has enjoyed a varied career which has seen him play with many orchestras including the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera, the Ulster Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In addition to his orchestral work, Matt has played on countless musicals both on tour and in London’s glittering West End.

Mayumi Fujikawa’s earliest training began with her father, a self-taught violinist, at the age of 3. At 16, she attended the Toho Conservatoire in Tokyo studying with the Hideo Saito, Kenji Kobayashi and Tomoyasu Soh. A scholarship from the Alex de Vries Foundation enabled her to work with Franz Wigy, a pupil of Ysaye, at the Flemish National Music Institute in Belgium. She later studied briefly with Leonid Kogan prior to her Grand Prix Vieuxtemps and her spectacular success in the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition, where she was described by David Oistrach as “the revelation of the competition”. Her concert activities have taken her as far afield as South America, the Far East, Israel, Asia and her native Japan. Her career in the United States began with a spectacular debut at the Lincoln Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy and has since widened to include appearances with virtually all the major US orchestras including Chicago, Boston, Houston, Dallas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Cleveland with which she appeared with Lorin Maazel at Carnegie Hall.

Sophie Fuller is a musicologist and writer on music. Her research interests centre around gender, sexuality and music in Britain in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and she has published widely on women’s engagement with music and music making. Author of The Pandora Guide to Women Composers (1994), Sophie has recently edited, with Jenny Doctor, Music, Life, and Changing Times: Selected Correspondence between British Composers Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams, 1927-77 (2020) as well as contributing to The Cambridge Companion to Women in Music since 1900 (2021), The Routledge Handbook of Women’s Work in Music (2022) and The Cambridge Companion to Women Composers (2023). 

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Cultural musicology, particularly late 19th and 20th century Britain
• Gender, sexuality and music
• Performance spaces for music

Sameeta Gahir began learning the flute at the age of eight, and the piccolo two years later. Growing up in London, she attended Alleyn’s School as a music scholar, and performed with youth orchestras including London Schools’ Symphony Orchestra as both Principal Flute and Piccolo.

In 2007, Sameeta became a Sir Thomas Beecham scholar at the University of Durham, which enabled her to study with the Principal Flute of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Juliette Bausor. In 2009, Sameeta started studying for a Bachelor of Music degree at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating with first class honours in 2013. Sameeta then embarked upon a two-year Master of Music course at the Köln Hochschule für Musik with Robert Winn. She was appointed Principal Piccolo of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra during the first year of that course.

Sameeta is grateful for the generous support by the Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust, EMI Music Sound Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society.

A leading player in the field of guitar chamber music, for ten years Roland was leader of the English Guitar Quartet; he currently leads the Segovia Trio, which he founded in 1986. With Roland Chadwick and Vincent Lindsey-Clark, he formed the Modern Guitar Trio in 1999 to perform exclusively works written by the performers in the group. He is a frequent performer in various ensembles with flute, voice and string quartets, and has recorded Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Roland has played at London’s major concert halls including Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican and Southbank Centre. He has toured Hungary, Israel, Australia, Canada and Germany. In 2004, at the invitation of the Venezuelan embassy, he gave a series of recitals and workshops in Venezuela. Well known as an arranger, Roland has produced over 300 arrangements and transcriptions, mostly for guitar ensemble and ranging from student repertoire to concert material. Over the years, he has worked with many composers to enrich the repertoire of the guitar. Those that have specially written works for him include Martyn Brabbins, Tim Brady, Jim Harley, Štěpán Rak, Jeffrey Sharkey, Roger Steptoe, Antonín Tučapský and Arthur Wills. Over the last few years Roland has broadcast live on BBC Radio 2, 3, 4, and Classic FM and appeared on television. He has worked regularly with the Royal Ballet and has appeared with them at the Royal Opera House, on tour and on film.

Dutch-born classical guitarist Dario van Gammeren has established an international career as a performer, educator and musicologist. He has performed widely as a soloist and chamber musician in the United Kingdom and abroad, and he has worked with numerous composers to broaden the classical guitar’s repertoire. Dario is Programme Leader for the Independent Study Programme (Advanced), the Postgraduate Advanced Diploma, and the Certificate in the Practice of Music Making. In addition, he is Digital Learning Manager, in which capacity he leads on the development and implementation of digital technologies that support a blended approach to curriculum delivery.

Research interests and areas of supervision:

• Guitar performance
• 20th century musicology