Tutors
dAVID hATCHER- Musical director
David Hatcher was born in Warwick and upon attaining the LTCL diploma two yearsafter taking up music, he went on to study viola da gamba with Charles Medlamand recorder with Philip Thorby at Trinity College of Music, London. He began hiscareer based in England, touring America, Israel, France, Germany and theNetherlands.
He has broadcast for both the BBC and independent radio and television. In 1987 hemoved to Japan where he was to remain for the next 9 years, taking an active partin that country’s flourishing early music scene. He has recorded with Evelyn Tubb, TheConsort of Musicke, I Fagiolini, Sprezzatura, and the Japanese ensembles Chelys,Ensemble Ecclesia and the Bach Collegium of Japan.
David now lives in Leominster on the Welsh Marches and has appeared withFretwork, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, The Globe Theatre, The Consort ofMusicke, Musica Antiqua of London, The Corelli Orchestra, The Harp Consort,Glyndebourne Opera and many other period orchestras and ensembles.He has taught on numerous summer schools, including the Cambridge Early MusicSummer School, the Easter Early Music Course at Monmouth and SastamalaGregoriana in Finland, and is in demand as a tutor for many weekend and daycourses.
Past projects include performing in Damon Albarn’s opera ‘Dr Dee’ and performingand recording with I Fagiolini in their hugely successful interpretation of Striggio’s 40-voice mass. He performed in the inaugural season of the Sam WanamakerPlayhouse in 2014 and in the highly acclaimed production of The Knight of theBurning Pestle in 2014 & 2015. He is a founder member of The Linarol Consort ofViols, the UK’s only consort specialising in the earliest repertoire for that instrument.
David Allinson - CHORAL DIRECTOR
David Allinson is a freelance conductor, singer and musicologist based in Canterbury. He has held teaching positions in music history and performance at universities including Oxford, Bristol and Canterbury (most recently he was Director of Music at Canterbury Christ Church University, 2013–19).
An experienced choral conductor and course tutor, he has led hundreds of early music workshops and residential schools around the UK and abroad. He has directed the Renaissance Singers of London since 2009, along with his own occasional a cappella ensemble, Cantores, making several recordings along the way, including a reconstruction of Hooper’s ‘Flat’ Service. A world premiere recording of Vivanco’s Requiem was released on Toccata Classics in January 2026.
David is deeply interested in the original context and meaning of sacred polyphony, and its emotional and spiritual effects on present-day singers and listeners. He relishes embedding performances in meaningful places, such as performing the new play Master Byrd at Ingatestone Hall in late 2023.
In 2024 David spoke about William Byrd’s music on Radio 4’s Sunday Worship, and with the Renaissance Singers broadcast two services of compline on Radio 3. This year, David led the Renaissance Singers on a tour to perform Victoria and Vivanco in their home city, Ávila, and was the interviewee for two editions of ‘Church and Culture’ on Ave Maria Radio.
Despite recent creeping sensationalism, he remains a loyal listener to The Archers.
jeremy west - Brass
Since the mid 1970’s Jeremy West has been a passionate advocate for the 17th century cornett. He has played a lead role in its re-establishment as a recognised virtuoso and ensemble instrument and he is often regarded as a “pioneer” in the field of historic brass. He is a founder member of His Majesty's Sagbutts & Cornetts (1982) – the leading ensemble of its kind now over 40 years old – and is Principal Wind Player with the Gabrieli Consort and Players for their earlier repertoire. He has more than 100 recordings to his credit.
In addition to a playing career which has taken him to 38 countries across 5 continents, since 1991 Jeremy has directed the instrument-making workshops of the late Christopher Monk. These workshops are devoted to the research, development, reproduction and world-wide distribution of all instruments in the cornett and serpent families. Examples of the workshop’s output, and in particular of the extraordinarily popular resin cornett – an instrument which has inspired and enabled the majority of today’s players – may be found from New York to New Zealand, Scandinavia to South America.
Jeremy West has had teaching positions at the London Guildhall School of Music & Drama, The Royal College of Music and at The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff where he held the International Chair of Historic Performance. He is also a Musician in Residence at Girton College, Cambridge.
Additionally Jeremy plays Eb horn - another frequently-overlooked brass instrument whose sound he finds beautiful and inspiring - for The Felling Band, an historic colliery brass band based in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, in the northeast of England. Tracing the ancestry of this instrument he co-founded the performing ensemble Queen Victoria’s Consort (2016) introducing historic brass instruments from the Kershaw Collection to audiences of all ages in a diverse range of venues from concert halls to steam events.Now celebrating 50 years of professional music, Jeremy lives with his wife, Susan Smith, in Weardale, County Durham in the Pennines of northern England.
Stephanie Dyer - Brass
Trombonist Stephanie Dyer enjoys a multifaceted career as a historical performance specialist, modern musician and educator. Born and raised in South Wales, Stephanie studied at King’s College, Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music, London, and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Switzerland. She performs with the internationally renowned historic brass group His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, of which she has been a member since 2016; and is principal trombone of the Orkest van de Achttiende Eeuw (Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century) in the Netherlands, one of the most distinguished period-instrument orchestras in the world.
Stephanie's performance activities are exceptionally diverse: equally at home on the concert platform, in theatres and in commercial studios, she featured in the BBC One Songs of Praise Christmas Special 2024, 'Candlelit Christmas'. In theatre, she can be heard in the West End (Wicked, The Book of Mormon) and in major touring productions (Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Mean Girls). She holds the trombone chair for the highly anticipated 2026 UK premiere production of the Broadway hit Something Rotten! at the Manchester Opera House and recently served as trombonist and cover conductor for Disney's Aladdin (UK/Ireland Tour, 2023–25). Her extensive discography spans historical performance projects to video game soundtracks.
A devoted teacher, Stephanie is Baroque Trombone professor at the Royal Academy of Music and teaches trombone at the University of Cambridge. She is also a passionate workshop leader across the UK and internationally, including for the regional Early Music Fora (2021–), Beauchamp Adult Early Music Course (2024–) and Colchester Early Music (2026), the International Early Music Summer School in Ścinawka Górna, Poland (2017–), the Warsaw Sackbut & Cornett Festival (2021–) and for Alta Capella Vianensis in the Netherlands (2022–).
Jennie cassidy- Choral
Jennie is a professional singer who has performed on five continents, travelling the world with leading early music groups such as the Taverner Consort, the Gabrieli Consort, the Harp Consort, Musica Antiqua of London, The Parley of Instruments, and Joglaresa. She has recorded over thirty CDs and has made radio broadcasts in many countries.
For 18 years Jennie has also been teaching singing to both adults and children. She has developed a solid understanding of good vocal health and created a vocal method based on a neutral vocal position. This method helps eliminate voice strain and achieve a comfortable yet supported sound. In addition to school and home tutoring, she teaches on international music weekends and at summer schools specialising in early music.
Her teaching experience includes the Renaissance Music Week in Denmark where all the music is provided in facsimile, courses in Holland and Germany for the Church Music Schools of Essen and Fulda, and a course in Hoff. There, she provides workshops, individual tuition, and performs alongside top professional early musicians such as Bruce Dickey and Adam Woolf.
Ann Allen - Woodwind
Bitten by the early music bug at an early age, Ann Allen, has never quite recovered and now is a leading specialist in early wind instruments.
Born in the UK, she has lived in Manchester, London, Basel, Berlin and Paris - studying at Royal Academy of Music, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and Sorbonne & Manchester Universities along the way. Now based permanently in Basel she divides her time between performing and teaching ... with a smattering of opera staging to spice things up.
She has performed with many of the leading wind ensembles including Alta Bellezza, Les Haulz et Les Bas, Capella Helvetica and I Fedeli and has been directing her own medieval ensemble, Mediva, for over two decades.
As a freelance oboist she has performed with many baroque orchestras including Capriccio Basel, Ad Fontes, L'Arpa Festante, La Cetra, and Academy of Ancient Music. For several years she ran the baroque chamber group Il Bacio and was co-founder of the UK based oboe band Syrinx.
Between 2006-2012 she established her own festival NOX ILLUMINATA presenting concerts in scenic and atmospheric settings, challenging standard concert tropes and mixing Early Music with other music genres and art forms. She has also created alternative staged performances of Dido and Aeneas, Weihnachtsoratorium and La Voix Humaine.
