Southport born Simon won an LEA music scholarship, studied with Roger Dowling, principal horn of RLPO and played with Merseyside Youth Orchestras. He studied at Royal Academy of Music, took part in masterclasses there and was a member of the YMSO and the Britten-Pears Orchestra. Simon has had an illustrious career in professional orchestras since, alphabetically from BBC Philharmonic to Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and many in between.

As a soloist he has performed major works in the horn repertoire, including those by Bach, Mozart,  Schumann, Strauss and Britten, giving recitals in venues as varied as major cathedrals and music clubs. He performed the world premiere of Robin Holloway’s Second Suite for Solo Horn and you may have heard him on BBC and film soundtracks. As a teacher, Simon is proud of his students from the Royal
Academy’s Intermediate Course, the Purcell School and Watford School of Music, many of whom are now playing in orchestras around the world, including the current principal horns of RLPO and BBCNOW.

Now teaching at the Sheffield Academy, Sheffield Music Hub and tutoring for the City ofSheffield Youth Orchestra, he also freelances around the Midlands and the North. In his spare time, he breeds and judges Burmese Cats.

Rose McLachlan comes from a family of musicians and was born in Cheshire in 2002. She began piano lessons with her father and entered Chetham’s School of Music in 2010, initially as a chorister at Manchester Cathedral. She now studies piano with Helen Krizos.

Rose has already had considerable successes in national and international competitions; she was the overall winner of the 2016 Scottish International Youth Prize at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and as a result of winning the Yamaha Prize in the 2017 EPTA UK competition, Rose performed at St Martins in the Fields. As an overall winner of the Chetham’s concerto competition in February 2018, Rose was selected to perform the Ravel G major concerto with the Chetham’s symphony orchestra during the 2018-19 season. In 2018 Rose also won the Chopin and Beethoven prizes at Chetham’s and in 2019 she was overall winner of the junior intercollegiate Beethoven Piano Society of Europe competition. Also, in 2019 Rose was the overall winner of the 11th “Dora Pejacevich“ competition organised by EPTA Croatia. In 2022, Rose was awarded the Chopin Prize at the RNCM and was named Kirklees Young Musician of the Year.

Rose has had the opportunity to play with orchestra on several occasions, with her debut aged 13 in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival playing Beethoven’s 2nd piano concerto. She went on to perform this another 4 times with her family completing the set. I’m 2019, Rose performed Shostakovich 2nd concerto witht the BBCCO conducted by Barry Wordsworth, which was broadcast twice on BBCR3. Most recently, she played Chopin’s 1st concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Bay. This was as a result of winning the concerto competition on the PianoTexas Festival and Academy, where she was a Young Artist.

2018 saw her first commercial recording being issued by Divine Art, performing ‘Five Hebridean Dances’ by John McLeod and in January 2020, Rose recorded piano duets by the distinguished British composer, Edward Gregson, with her father for a new commercial recording on the Naxos label.

Rose is an avid chamber musician; playing in a piano trio, piano duo and with singers. She has performed major song cycles, including Schumann’s Liederkreis in the Manchester Song Festival and Schubert’s Winterreise with the Curious Opera Company.

Away from the piano, Rose enjoys writing and has had an article published for the online Pianist magazine.

Rose is currently in her final year at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, continuing her studies with Helen Krizos. She is extremely grateful to receive support from the Waverley Fund, Sir Max Bemrose Bursary, Pendleton Young Musicians Bursary and Talent Unlimited

Iona has been playing violin since she was 4 years old, beginning with the Suzuki method and studying with Ms Brenda Smith of Ayr.  After six years of study at Chetham’s School of Music with Ms Yumi Sasaki, Iona now studies at Royal Academy of Music with Giovanni Guzzo and Michael Foyle.  Born in Dumfries, and with her early education  in Moffat, Iona is a well known young musician around Dumfries and Galloway, regularly taking part in festivals, charity and fundraising events.

Studying at Chetham’s School of Music presented Iona with many performance opportunities with lunchtime concerts, her own quartet, Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra as well as community music.  She also had many opportunities to perform abroad when she was selected to take part in the Commonwealth Resounds trip to Sri Lanka in Nov 2013 in schools and orphanages around the country as well as the Sri Lanka Symphony Orchestra.  Her quartet were also selected to take part in an exchange to Oslo to the Barratt Due Institute in November 2014 and March 2015, studying and performing with Pavel Fisher and the Rondo quartet and with Chetham’s Chamber Orchestra at the William Walton Festival in Ischia in July 2016.

​Iona has been a member of National Youth Orchestra of Scotland ensembles since she was eight years old.  She has led Senior Orchestra and with Symphony Orchestra she toured China in 2015 and played at the Proms in 2016.  She was delighted to be selected as leader of Symphony Orchestra for the 2017 season.

​Now in her third year at RAM, Iona has been busy performing with the Torridon piano trio and RAM Symphony Orchestra as well as playing new compositions, teaching and playing with local orchestras.  Iona was selected to travel with RAM Symphony Orchestra to Japan in June 2018 and to the LacMus festival in Lake Como in July .  Iona achieved a Very Highly Commended in the Winfred Small prize for violin in 2018 at RAM and competed in the Walton competition in Oct 2018.

​Iona has performed as soloist with Glasgow Chamber Orchestra, Buxton Musical Society, Musicale,  Halifax Symphony Orchestra, High Peak Orchestra and MLC school. 

​Iona’s violin is by Philip Ihle.

Matthew McLachlan was born in 2000 and started piano lessons with his father in 2008. Aged 11 he passed grade 8 and entered Wells Cathedral School as a specialist musician, studying with John Byrne. After two years he entered Chetham’s in Manchester where he now studies piano with Dina Parakhina and Cello with Gill Thoday.

After gaining the ATCL and LTCL recital diplomas with distinction in 2014 and 2015, Matthew was awarded the FTCL in 2016. This followed winning third prize in the senior division of the first Scottish International Youth Prize Competition, held at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in July 2016. In 2014 Matthew’s performance of Ravel’s G Major Piano Concerto was commended in the Chetham’s Concerto competition and he was also a prizewinner at the 2014 Mazovia Chopin Festival in Poland. As a result of this performance, he was chosen to perform a solo recital at the 2015 World Piano Teachers’ Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia. In 2016 Matthew gave many recitals and was a finalist in the Chetham’s Beethoven Piano Competition for the second year running.

During the 2016-17 season he performed Beethoven’s First Concerto seven times, including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in Devon, Lanzarote and Wales. He was awarded first prize in the Chetham’s Senior Bach competition and performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in the Paderewski Festival in

Poland. Also in 2017 he toured with his family in a series of recitals featuring Brahms’ Sonata no. 1 in C major.

In the past year he has completed his A levels whilst continuing a busy performing schedule ,including performances of Bartok’s ‘Contrasts’ for clarinet, violin and piano as well as three performances of Mozart’s 13th concerto (in Trieste, Haddington and Rhyl) and recitals featuring Chopin’s great F minor Fantasy in Lanzarote and at the RNCM in Manchester. Matthew formally finished studies at Chetham’s school of Music only last week, and plans to have a gap year before continuing studies at a conservatoire in Europe. Away from music Matthew is a keen footballer, playing for Hazel Grove United. He is also very interested in modern languages.

Born in 1998 into a family of musicians in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia, he began learning the violin at the age of five with Natalia Fikhtengolts at trhe Gnessin School of music.  At the age of seven, he entered the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatoire; where he was under the tutelage of the eminent violin pedagogue, Prof. Galina Turchaninova and Prof. Asya Kushner.

In 2016, Savva received a scholarship to study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester; where he is currently studying under Yuri Torchinsky, the leader of the BBC Philharmonic.

Savva has been the winner of prestigious international music competitions such as Leopold Auer International Violin and String Quartet Competition, Emil Kamilarov festival and competition for talented young violinists Sofia, Bulgaria and many others.

He has also performed in masterclasses/lessons given by notable musicians such as Andrey Baranov, Pavel Vernikov, Pierre Amoyal, Boris Kuschnir, Zakhar Bron, Krzystof Wergrzyn, Alina Ibragimova, Alina Poostkina and Yair Kless.

His studies at the RNCM are generously funded by the Levenshulme Trust.

Eleanor Hudson was born in Buxton Derbyshire, and began to learn the piano at the age of four, wanting to play the harp from the age of six.  She finally got her first harp at the age of thirteen, studying with Mair Jones from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, then going on to Chethams School of Music, Manchester under Jean Bell from the Halle Orchestra, with whom she continued her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music.  During her time here Eleanor won the Guinness scholarship for harp and was awarded the highest mark ever for harp performance.

She then went on to gain a distinction in harp performance from the Royal College of Music and started to work regularly for Scottish Chamber Orchestra including a number of concerto appearances, as well as guest principal harp for the Halle, Philharmonia, Opera North, BBC Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras.  She has also been lucky enough to work with Bill Bailey, Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello, the Moody Blues and the Ronnie Hazlehurst Orchestra.

Eleanor travelled to Spain to join the Malaga Symphony Orchestra for a year before returning to England to take up the post of Principal Harpist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.  During her fifteen years here she performed numerous concertos, was part of the original 10/10 contemporary ensemble and also became very committed to the Phil’s education programme.

Eleanor has recently left the RLPO to return to freelancing and having retrained as an SEN music teacher runs music projects in schools as well as taking on the role of Harp Tutor at Chethams School of Music.  She is currently a lead musician working with the RLPO /Mersey Care NHS project devising and delivering music workshops in mental health visiting many secure settings such as Ashworth Hospital.

Based in Glossop, Maria enjoys a busy and varied career combining professional orchestral, chamber and solo playing with teaching and coaching young musicians.

Born in Merthyr Tydfil, she started the flute at the age of nine, studying with John Turner in her early teens.  Subsequently she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Northern College of Music to study under Kate Hill and Trevor Wye.  As a professional flautist, Maria has played with the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata and Northern Chamber Orchestra.  In 1985 she was a finalist in the “National Flute Association of America” competition which was held in Denver, Colorado.

From 1987-91 she was principal flute with the East of England Orchestra (now Sinfonia Viva).  She very much enjoys playing chamber music in a wide range of ensembles, and has performed as soloist in concertos including Mozart D Major, Bach B Minor Suite and Brandenburg 5, CPE Bach D Minor, Vivaldi “La Notte” and the William Alwyn Concerto.  She has made two solo CDs, accompanied by her brother, Francis Rayner.

Much in demand as a teacher, Maria really enjoys inspiring a love of music in the next generation, and in recent years has devoted much energy to developing opportunities for young musicians in the Peak District.  Together with her husband Jeff, she has been involved in the development of a thriving music centre in the Dark Peak area.

Maria is thrilled to be reunited with En for this performance as they first started playing as a duo back in their student days at the RNCM in the 1980s.