Biographies
Adrian France
Adrian France has been a member of The English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble since 1993. As a graduate from the Royal Academy of Music, his career has become one of great diversity covering most aspects of Trombone playing.
On the Sackbut, Adrian has made numerous recordings and performed extensively with a variety of period orchestras and ensembles from the UK and abroad including The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Academy of Ancient Music, The English Baroque Soloists, The Gabrieli Consort and Players, The New London Consort, Europa Galante Orchestra (Fabio Biondi), The Sixteen, The Musicians of the Globe, The Orchestra of the Renaissance and Ensemble La Fenice. Adrian is also Principal Bass Trombone and Bass Sackbut of The King's Consort.
As well as his work on period Trombones, Adrian continues to enjoy a varied career on the Modern Bass Trombone working with The Ulster Orchestra, The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Southern Sinfonia, The Britten Sinfonia, The Wallace Collection, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The London Jazz Orchestra and Orquesta Symphonica de Gran Canaria, The English Touring Opera and The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (Abbado, Harding).
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Tom Lees
Tom studied the trombone at the Royal Northern College of Music, before becoming the first full-time student of the sackbut at the RCM, winning a Countess of Munster musical scholarship to continue his early music studies there. Since then, he has joined with London Brass on a record of Venetian brass music, and has performed and recorded with many of the specialist period instrument ensembles, including The Gabrieli Consort and Players, The English Baroque Soloists, The King's Consort, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Tafelmusik, with whom he recorded the Mozart Requiem trombone solo. Tom is also a regular performer with The Musicians of the Globe, a group specially assembled to provide music at the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe on London's Bankside.
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Emily White
Emily studied sackbut with Sue Addison at the Royal Academy of Music and has gone on to freelance with various ensembles such as His Majestie's Sackbutts and Cornettes, The King's Consort,The Gabrielli Consort and The Sixteen. Emily has played sackbuts in productions at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre since its opening season in 1997 up to 2005, and worked as an orchestral player with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the german orchestra Balthazar-Neumann Ensemble and The Academy of Ancient Music. Emily also plays modern trombone, and freelances with orchestras such as the BBC National Orchetsra of Wales, The Flemish Radio Orchestra and The Welsh National Opera. Last year she launched a duo with contemporary trombonist John Kenny. Emily has coached sackbuts at both Trinity College of Music, and Royal Scottish Academy of Music, and was the tutor on this years 'Bonelab' trombone course at Dartington International Summer School.
Gawain Glenton
Gawain is quickly establishing himself as one of Europe’s leading cornetto players whose work takes him all over the world. Born in England’s Yorkshire Dales he now lives in Basel, Switzerland and works regularly with many of the finest interpreters of renaissance and baroque music. The next year alone sees him performing with ensembles such as Concerto Palatino, His Majesty’s Sackbutts and Cornetts, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Ton Koopman), The Gabrieli Consort and Players (Paul McCreesh) and Les Talens Lyriques (Christophe Rousset). Other projects see him performing with Konrad Junghängel and Rinaldo Alessandrini. He is also, of course, a member of The English Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble. Gawain has recently completed his studies at Basel’s renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis where he studied cornetto with Bruce Dickey and voice with Gerd Türk.
Robert Howarth
Robert studied music at the University of York. Upon graduating he won the Music Department Prize for his outstanding musical contribution.
Whilst in York he established himself as the regular continuo player for the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, under the direction of Peter Seymour. As a continuo specialist he has played with many of the world's prime early Music Ensembles such as the New London Consort, Musician's of the Globe, His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts and Concordia. With these groups Robert has worked under the direction of Philip Pickett, Paul McCreesh and Jaap Ter Linden.
He has appeared as a finalist twice in the Early Music Network International Young Artists Competition, first with Wood, Wind and Wire and subsequently with the ensemble Ogni Sorte d'Istromenti. Robert is now Artistic Director of the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble, for whom he edits many as yet unpublished works for that combination of instruments.
Possibly Robert's most spectacular appearance was during a four-hour extravaganza of seven harpsichordists in the Purcell Room in June 1998, to celebrate three generations of continuo players from The New London Consort.