Historical Performance

After Studying for her BA in Music at Queen’s College, University of Oxford and a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy of Music, Alexandra Bellamy completed her training with a stint as Principal Oboe of the European Union Baroque Orchestra. She has since established herself as one of the leading lights in the world of historical performance, having played with many of the UK’s period instrument orchestras. She has featured on several award-winning CDs and is much in demand as a principal and solo oboist.

She was Principal Oboe of the King’s Consort from 1999 to 2008 and featured on many of the group’s recordings from that time, most notably as the soloist on a disc of Handel’s oboe sonatas. She also has a long standing relationship with the chamber group Florilegium and has appeared on several of their discs over the years; as well as the Gabrieli Consort, Arcangelo and Rachel Podger’s Brecon Baroque, with whom she can be heard as soloist in Bach’s Oboe and Violin Concerto on their Bach Concerti disc. As Principal Oboe of the Dunedin Consort directed by John Butt, she has been involved in many highly acclaimed recordings, including the Brandenburg Concerti, St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio. In 2018 she was appointed Second Oboe with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and has since joined them for many wonderful projects.

Other career highlights have included tours of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed by Richard Tognetti, and tours and recordings with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.

Photo by Elsbeth Pilz

Terence Charlston is an internationally acknowledged specialist performer on early keyboard instruments, particularly harpsichord, clavichord and organ. He studied music at Keble College, University of Oxford, where he was organ scholar, and then harpsichord at the Royal Academy of Music. His broad career encompasses many complementary roles including solo and chamber musician, choral and orchestral director, teacher and academic researcher. His extensive discography reflects his passionate interest in keyboard music of all types and styles. He was a member of the quartet London Baroque between 1995 and 2007 and the ensemble Florilegium between 2011 and 2019. In recent years, he has developed a particularly close affinity with the clavichord and is currently recording 20th- and 21st-century music, including his own compositions.

Charlston has become an important advocate of European keyboard music of the 17th and 18th centuries and his numerous publications include editions and recordings of Carlo Ignazio Monza, Albertus Bryne, William Byrd’s My Ladye Nevells Booke, Matthew Locke’s complete organ and harpsichord music, and Froberger: Complete Fantasias and Canzona on clavichord. His Mersenne’s Clavichord and The Harmonious Thuringian albums are considered exemplary models of practice-led research, drawing together meticulous organological and musicological enquiry with intuitive performance insight. His current research interests focus on the analysis of keyboard music, particularly counterpoint, as an aural and performed experience.

A dedicated and much sought-after teacher, Charlston has played a significant role at several prestigious British conservatoires and universities. He is currently Chair of Historical Keyboard Instruments and Professor of Harpsichord at the Royal College of Music. Previously he taught at the Royal Academy of Music, where he founded the Department of Historical Performance in 1995, and was International Visiting Tutor in Harpsichord at the Royal Northern College of Music until 2019. He was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 1996 and received the honorary award of Fellow of the Royal College of Music in 2020. Over the last decade, he has helped to guide the exciting young vocal ensemble Amici Voices and has guest directed many of their concerts and recording projects.

Photo by Ben McKee

With an equal focus on contemporary and baroque music, Tabea Debus’s burgeoning career has taken her across Europe, Asia, Colombia and the USA. Highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, at the London and York Early Music Festivals, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Baroque at the Edge, Edinburgh International Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and Brecon Baroque Festival. Debus has collaborated with The English Concert, La Serenissima, Dunedin Consort, LSO Soundhub, English Chamber Orchestra and WDR Rundfunkchor, among many others, and has appeared live on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune and The Early Music Show. In 2019, she released her fourth album, Favourites, a follow-up to the highly acclaimed XXIV Fantasie per il Flauto.

Debus studied at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Professor Michael Schneider and the Royal Academy of Music with Pamela Thorby. She graduated with the Principal’s Prize and continued her association with the Academy as 2016-17 Meaker Fellow. Awards include the 2019 WEMAG Soloists Prize at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and first prize at the 2019 SRP/Moeck International Solo Recorder Competition, 2014 Johann Heinrich Schmelzer Competition and 2011 Hülsta Woodwinds International Competition. A former St John's Smith Square, Handel House and City Music Foundation artist, she was selected by the Young Classical Artists Trust in 2018 and joined the Concert Artist Guild roster for representation in America the following year.

Debus teaches recorder at Wells Cathedral School, has led seminars at the Royal Academy of Music and collaborates with London Music Masters and other organisations for workshops with children around the globe.

Photo by Ben Ealovega