The Ensemble

Belinda fell in love with early music while studying modern oboe and recorder at the VCA (University of Melbourne.) She won a scholarship to study baroque and classical oboe in The Netherlands with Frank de Bruine and Ku Ebbinge, and is now based in London, playing with orchestras such as The Academy of Ancient Music (as principal and sub-principal), The Sixteen, The Gabrieli Consort and Players, La Stagione Frankfurt etc.

She has recorded with the Academy of Ancient Music, Ex Cathedra and The Hanover Band; her operatic engagements include a stint at St Petersburg's Hermitage Theatre and the Utrecht Festival. She co-founded the ensemble Concentus VII, an ensemble which brings the cantatas and chamber music of the mid 18th century to new audiences, performing in pubs and cafes as well as more traditional concert venues.

Belinda is a specialist in 19th century performance practice and has performed many of the major romantic oratorio and orchestral works with orchestras in the UK and abroad. She studied romantic oboe with Marcel Ponseele, topping her year at Philippe Herreweghe's Abbaye aux Dames course. As a member of the Fourier Ensemble (a piano and wind group) she has performed music from Mozart to Poulenc on original instruments.

She has appeared with the Medieval ensemble The Artisans on curtal, shawm and recorder, and is a member of the wind band Blondel. Not to neglect contemporary music, she has performed new works for early winds with the German group Triskelion.

Recorder player and clarinettist Louise began her studies with Philip Pickett and Jane Booth at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and furthered her interest in early music by taking a Masters in Historical Musicology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She then studied Classical and Romantic orchestral performance at the Abbaye aux Dames, Saintes, as part of the Jeune Orchestre Atlantique and classical clarinet and basset horn with Lorenzo Coppola in Verona.

Since 1999 Louise has performed regularly with New London Consort with whom she has appeared as a concerto soloist and toured extensively in Europe, the UK and Australasia. She has worked as a freelancer with high profile ensembles such as Il Giardino Armonico, The Gabrieli Players, Retrospect Ensemble, London Handel Orchestra and Les Arts Florissants. Recordings include for BBC Radio 3, France Musique, ORF and Deutsche Grammophon.

Notable chamber music performances include concerts of Romantic wind chamber music in the “Spotlight on Young Artists” series at the Festival de Saintes, touring with the French wind ensemble “Ensemble Philidor” on clarinet and basset horn; concerts of Shakespeare’s music for broken consort as guest recorder player with Philip Pickett’s “Musicians of the Globe” in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and De Doelan, Rotterdam as well as performances of English Baroque music for voice and recorders with New London Consort in venues such as London’s Purcell Room. As well as being a co-founder of Concentus VII she is a member of the acclaimed basset horn trio “Clarino Ensemble” and the 19th century wind chamber group “Fourier Ensemble”.

Harpsichordist Masumi Yamamoto is based in the UK and regularly performs across the UK and abroad as a soloist and continuo player. She has appeared with such orchestras as St. James’s Baroque, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists and the International Baroque Players, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in the UK and ABC Classic FM in Australia. She was a prize winner at the prestigious International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges in 2007 and became the first Japanese harpsichordist to reach the finals in 21 years. She was also a semi-finalist in the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig (2006), a runner-up in the Broadwood Harpsichord Competition in London (2007), and a finalist in the Fenton House Keyboard Ensemble Competition (2008) with ensemble Corona Baroque.

Masumi graduated with a University Medal from the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Brisbane Australia where she studied piano with Leah Horwitz and harpsichord with Huguette Brassine. In the UK, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music, then at Trinity College of Music as a pupil of harpsichordist James Johnstone and was later "The English Concert" Junior Fellow with ensemble Melopoetica. Masumi is currently a MPhil/PhD candidate at the University of York.

Masumi's recent performance highlights include recording for a BBC Radio 3 programme “Discovering Music” with St. James’s Baroque and the BBC singers under James O’Donnell, a recital of two-harpsichord music in Bristol, London and York, and Bach’s multiple-keyboard concertos in Brisbane Australia. She has also appeared in concerts with such distinguished musicians as Dame Emma Kirkby, Gillian Keith and Robin Blaze, and her future engagements include solo recitals in Cambridge and Bristol as well as in Brisbane Australia.

Now also a keen educator, she teaches at Streatham & Clapham High School (GDST) and James Allen's Saturday School for the Performing Arts, and has given Masterclasses and lessons at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore and Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in Australia.

Emily Atkinson is an American singer based in London. She earned a degree in music education from the Crane School of Music in New York before studying singing at the Royal College of Music.

She enjoys singing Bach cantatas with London’s Sweelinck Ensemble, baroque chamber music with various groups, and creative song recitals with modern instrumentalists and other singers. Emily has been heard on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Early Music Show’ as an oratorio soloist and on ‘In Tune’ with her vocal quartet The 1607 Ensemble, with whom she has also appeared at several festivals, most recently in Utrecht, Capri, and on the Isle of Man. She has sung solo roles in Handel’s Messiah and La Resurrezione, Bach’s Mass in B Minor, St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung.

Emily is also an enthusiastic music teacher and spends much of her time singing and playing instruments with children in London primary schools.

Cheyney Kent studied at the Royal Academy of Music and King’s College, London University where he held a choral scholarship. For more than ten years Cheyney has been doing the fullest range of first-class chorus work both in the UK and abroad. Recent projects have included productions of Alceste and Don Giovanni for the Aix Festival & Semele for the Beijing International Music Festival, both with English Voices, as well as a run of performances of Britten’s Albert Herring with Surrey Opera.

Cheyney has most recently been involved in educational work and Proms concerts with the BBC Singers. He continues to sing with many of tonight’s artists as part of the Sweelinck Ensemble, performing Bach’s cantatas within the liturgy at monthly Vespers. Future plans include L’Enfance du Christ with Sir Mark Elder.