William Lyons is a diverse and well-known musician, working in the fields of performance, composition and research. He has been at the forefront of the Early Music movement for many years, composes for theatre and other media and is active in research into matters of Historic Performance Practice and teaches at leading UK music conservatoires.

William is director of the acclaimed early music ensembles The Dufay Collective and The City Musick. He is also a regular performer with leading early music groups such as The Gabrieli Consort and I Fagiolini. Time is otherwise spent as a music consultant, researcher and tutor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the Royal College of Music. His Radio 4 documentary on the lives of civic musicians in Tudor London was well received and was made ‘Pick of The Week’.

In 2011/12 William worked closely as collaborator and advisor with Damon Albarn on the creation of the innovative ‘Dr Dee’ that successfully premiered at the Manchester International Festival and for English National Opera.

As an expert performer, William can be heard on the soundtracks of numerous films, including most recently Robin Hood, Pride & Prejudice, The Hobbit, Les Miserables and Grand Budapest Hotel. He also recorded all the historic woodwind samples for the Cinesamples music software programme.

William has composed and arranged music for film and TV, including Pride and Prejudice and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.  On Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban he was a performer and advisor to John Williams on scoring and historical soundscapes.

He has a long association with the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre as a composer, performer, Musical Director and Historical Music Adviser. Previously for the Globe he has composed for ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Richard II’, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, ‘The Winter’s Tale’, ‘Coriolanus’, ‘Liberty’, ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’, ‘Blue Stockings’ and the acclaimed productions of Howard Brenton’s ‘In Extremis’ and ‘Anne Boleyn’, the latter winning the TMA Best Touring Production 2012. He composed for the new play by Brenton, ‘Dr Scroggy’s War’ that premiered to critical acclaim at the Globe in September 2014. In 2015 he composed the music for Helen Edmundson’s ‘The Heresy of Love’.

In 2015 William composed an eclectic score for the National Theatre’s acclaimed production of ‘Everyman’, directed by the new Artistic Director, Rufus Norris. He directed a Gabrieli Consort collaboration on extracts from ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in Washington DC and at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London. 

Library music projects in 2016 were varied to say the least! There was a disc of Ancient Roman and Greek tracks, Hollywood epic fanfares, and folk and medieval tracks for the History Zone.

In 2015 William also composed a soundscape for a wonderful wedding painting by the mid 16th century painter Martin van Cleve. This was for the Frieze Masters Exhibition in Regents Park, one of the world's premier art fairs. He also composed music for the British Library 'Shakespeare in Ten Acts' Exhibition and is currently working on a score for English Heritage and National Trust promotions. William has recently written and presented a BBC Radio 3 Early Music Show on the legacy of David Munrow.

George Bartle has been making noise since he became a chorister in Ely Cathedral as a boy. Since then, he has graduated from the Royal College of Music in London and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland as a singer and sackbut specialist. He has performed with many early music ensembles in the UK and abroad and has regularly worked as a musician with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. He is also a virtuosic ukulele player with his duo Opera-lele and as a solo act Renaissance Uke Man. With The City Musick, George can be seen playing sackbut, slide trumpet, renaissance guitar and recorder as well as singing.

Gawain Glenton is a specialist cornetto player whose work as a soloist and an ensemble musician takes him all over the world. He performs and records with many leading international groups and directors, such as Il Giardino Armonico, Concerto Palatino, l'Arpeggiata, Les Talens Lyriques, Concerto Italiano, The Taverner Consort, Barokksolistene and the Nederlandse Bachvereniging. Gawain is a member of The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, with whom he has recorded several acclaimed CDs, including 'The Spy's Choirbook' with Alamire - winner of the 2015 Gramophone Award for Early Music. Gawain also appears as a featured artist on 2016's winner of the Gramophone Award for Early Music: The Taverner Consort's recording of the Western Wind Mass

Although now based in the UK, Gawain spent several years living in Basel where he studied with Bruce Dickey at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. As a result of these years abroad, Gawain is closely involved with many 'next generation' ensembles, such as Ensemble Leones, and also the Basel-based I Fedeli. In the UK, Gawain also works with ensembles such as The City Musick and I Fagiolini.

Gawain's research and expertise in the field of ornamenting early music has also led to him becoming increasingly in demand as a coach for both singers and instrumentalists. His experience as a professional singer and player of reed instruments and recorders also helps to make Gawain a highly versatile musician. Very much at home in the rich musical world of the 16th and 17th centuries, Gawain also enjoys expanding the repertoire of the cornetto, either by performing new and challenging contemporary music, or by working with other musicians from the rock, pop and folk worlds.

Gawain has recently enrolled at Southampton University to begin a doctoral study of Italian diminution treatises. This three-year project is funded by the AHRC as part of the South West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership.

Originally from Devon in the UK, Sarah Humphrys studied recorder, baroque oboe and shawm at the Royal College of Music in London, and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland. She now enjoys a varied career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teacher.

Sarah performs throughout Europe with her two chamber groups- Ensemble Meridiana, the recipients of 3 major international chamber music awards, and Fontanella, recorder quintet. Sarah was principal oboe of the European Union Baroque Orchestra in 2005-06. She now plays with period instrument ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Gabrieli Consort, I Fagiolini, the Sixteen, La Nuova Musica and the English Concert.

Sarah has performed as a principal player in seasons at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre since 2003 and has played on soundtracks including Shrek 3 and Wolf Hall.

www.ensemblemeridiana.com
www.fontanella.co.uk

Tom studied the trombone at the Royal Northern College of Music, before becoming the first full-time student of the sackbut at the Royal College of Music, winning a Countess of Munster musical scholarship to continue his early music studies there. Since then, Tom has regularly performed and recorded with many of the specialist period instrument ensembles at home and abroad and is a full time member of the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble and the City Musick. 

Performing on ‘historical’ trombones, Tom has recorded music for a number of tv and film sessions, including Wolf Hall, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Shrek the Third and Pride and Prejudice, in which he also appears in the film playing an early 18th century trombone.

Nicholas has worked extensively as a theatre musician at Shakespeare's Globe, (including twice as a deputy in an all-female company) and also for the  National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.  Recent concert and recording work includes performances for the Gabrieli Consort, I Fagiolini, Alamire and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.  As a serpent player he has performed with the Brodsky String Quartet, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and as a soloist with the BBC singers.

As well as The City Musick he is a member of the London Serpent Trio, and the City Waites and has played frequently for film and television.  He works as an instrument maker in wood and brass, and has repaired instruments for many public and private collections in the UK. He is curator of the musical instrument collection at SOAS, University of London, and was until recently the world’s only professional serpent leatherer.

Richard studied at the University of Wales, the Royal Academy of Music and the Schola Cantorum, Switzerland.  As part of his Master of Arts degree, Richard undertook research into the William Shaw Silver State Trumpets housed in the Jewel House, at the Tower of London.  

Richard’s interest in the performance practice of historical brass instruments (including the natural trumpet, keyed bugle, saxhorn, slide trumpet and cornett) has enabled him to work with The Wallace Collection, English Baroque Soloists, Australian Chamber Orchestra, The King’s Consort, Florilegium, Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Dufay Collective, Ex Cathedra, New London Consort, Gabrieli Consort, Opera North, English Touring Opera, Norwegian Opera, Early Opera Company, Alamire, London Pro Arte Baroque, Counterpoint, Meridian Sinfonia and the Musiciens de Louvre – Grenoble.

As well as being a regular performer at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London Richard can be heard on the film sound tracks for Shrek III, The Golden Age and Bedtime Stories.

Richard is a founder member and director the acclaimed sackbut and cornett ensemble QuintEssential as well as a founder member of waits band The City Musick, teaches natural trumpet and cornetto at the Royal College of Music, London and the Birmingham Conservatoire and University of Birmingham.