Tutors | Recorder Summer School

Tom Beets: As a member of both established and upcoming performing groups, and as a teacher at venues across the world, Tom Beets is one of the most talented and exciting young recorder players of the Low Countries. Tom has been a thriving force as both a playing member and administrator of The Flanders Recorder Quartet, widely acknowledged as one of the leading recorder groups in the world. With them he has played an taught all over the world and has recorded half a dozen CD’s. Tom also plays in the recorder quintet Mezzaluna, which was founded in 2003 as a logical consequence of many years of musicological and organological co-operation between the Peter Van Heyghen and recorder maker Adrian Brown. Tom is a teacher in music schools in Belgium. In addition, he leads masterclasses and workshops across Europe, in the Far East, and in the USA and he regularly teaches on residential courses in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, UK and USA. The most recent project is FR2. Tom is also a viola de gamba player.
Sandra Foxall started playing the recorder at Teacher Training College, joined the Society of Recorder Players in 1971 and has been Musical Director of the Cleveland branch since 1979. Since 1996 she has also been on the panel of SRP Visiting Conductors, conducting SRP groups throughout the country and in Ireland and the Isle of Man and was the Country and Overseas Secretary for the SRP for 10 years. She is an honorary life member of SRP and is also a Music Adviser. Sandra conducts at National Festivals and has tutored on numerous playing days and directed Teachers’ courses. She regularly tutored on residential courses at Parcevall Hall and Little Benslow Hills in Hitchin for many years. She is the Musical Director of the North East Recorder Orchestra which meets in Newcastle-upon -Tyne. Between 1988 and 2012 she was the Administrator of the Recorder Summer School, 25 years all told, and from 1999 a course tutor.
Sarah Jeffery is a recorder player and educator based in the Netherlands. After graduating cum laude from her master studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Sarah now collaborates closely with composers, in particular to create music-theatre. Prior to her studies in Amsterdam, Sarah gained a first class honours degree in music at the Birmingham Conservatoire in England, under the tuition of Annabel Knight and Ross Winters. As well as being a soloist, Sarah performs with a number of her own ensembles: aXolot (recorder trio, Jerboah (pop band), Theater fluup! (music-theatre for toddlers), The Royal Wind Music (large Renaissance recorder consort), and The White Noise Orchestra (free improvisation). She has performed throughout the world from Denmark to Singapore, across a wide variety of baroque and contemporary music festivals.
Sarah has appeared on BBC, Swiss and Dutch radio and television, and has recorded on a number of studio CDs, including her debut solo album Constellations. She is active in education: alongside teaching masterclasses and workshops, she gives workshops in improvisation and composition at the SoundLAB in Amsterdam, using electronic sound installations. She runs a YouTube channel – Team Recorder – providing recorder tutorials every week. Sarah also writes about music, and is part of the editorial team at the Dutch recorder magazine ‘Blokfluitist’.
Helen Hooker is an experienced recorder player, teacher and conductor. The main focus of Helen’s teaching is working with adult players of all abilities, regularly coaching SRP branches and teaching on recorder courses throughout the UK. She has been a tutor at the Recorder Summer School since 1993 and was Chairman from 2005 to 2019. Helen is an active performer. Her solo CD, Helen and Friends, was launched to critical acclaim in 2009. She is also a member of The Parnassian Ensemble, a baroque ensemble which specializes in the performance of unjustly neglected English Baroque music. As a conductor, Helen has a strong interest in recorder orchestras. She formed the Thames Valley Recorder Orchestra and the Mellow Tones Recorder Orchestra – the UK’s only regularly rehearsing eight-foot band. Other orchestral projects have included Bravo Bonsor!, a CD of music composed by the late Brian Bonsor. More recently Helen began a project to create consort videos and Score Lines, an educational blog to help keep people playing the recorder through the Covid-19 pandemic.
Philip Thorby is well known as one of the country’s leading performers and teachers in the field of Renaissance and Baroque music. He is founder and Director of the Renaissance ensemble Musica Antiqua of London, which has remained at the forefront of research-based performance of early sixteenth-century music. As a recorder player, Philip’s interests range widely. Two areas of special interest are sixteenth-century divisions (elaborate instrumental works based on vocal originals) and the music of early eighteenth-century London.
In addition to his past work at Trinity College of Music, where he was Professor of Recorder and Senior Fellow in Early Music, Philip has worked in contemporary fields with artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, John Taverner and David Bedford. Philip teaches widely in England and abroad.
Bart Spanhove has been professor for recorder, ensemble playing and “practice practising” at LUCA, Lemmens Conservatory in Leuven, Belgium since 1984. Bart was a member of the Flanders Recorder Quartet, with whom he has recorded 28 CDs and given more than 2.500 concerts in 55 countries, besides giving master classes and workshops worldwide. Making and teaching music is his greatest joy. Every day is a small life with music. Bart has published his insight and experiences in The Finishing Touch of Ensemble Playing,The Finishing Touch to Practising and Blokfluitmuziek van Frans Geysen. For the past ten years he has focused his interest on methods of practising and has given many lectures and workshops for musicians on the topic of practising strategies. “Learning is practising without repetition” is his motto for life long lively and exhilarating music making.
Annemarie Klein is a recorder player, teacher and translator based in Edinburgh. She completed her BMus at the University of Edinburgh and her MA in Recorder Performance at the Lemmens Institute in Leuven with Bart Spanhove and Bart Coen. Annemarie is a member of the Spinacino Consort which explores music from around 1500, with Eric Thomas (lute), Héloïse Bernard (soprano), Aaron McGregor (violin) and Claire Horáček (viol). She teaches privately and is in demand as a tutor on residential recorder courses across the UK. During the pandemic, she teamed up with the keyboard player John Kitchen to perform several live-streamed concerts. She has recently translated Bart Spanhove’s new book on practice techniques into English (publication forthcoming) as well as translating for Moeck Musikverlag.
Described as an ‘incredible player’ (Classic FM) Miriam Monaghan (née Nerval) leads a varied career as a recorder player, composer/arranger and educator. Highlights include being the first recorder player to be profiled in BBC Music Magazine’s Rising Star: Great Artists of Tomorrow feature; recording for Disney at Abbey Road Studios; winning a City Music Foundation award and being asked by Classic FM to give a recorder lesson to former Top Gear presenter, James May. Miriam performs internationally with Palisander recorder quartet. A passionate educator, she is now a tutor for the National Youth Recorder Orchestra, and Head of Recorder and Music Makers (KS1) for Richmond Music Trust.
Moira Usher played recorder since age of five. She attended Trinity College London as cellist and pianist and played recorder with the early music group under Edgar Hunt. Moira has wide ranging musical tastes and enjoys variety above all else. She taught music in comprehensive schools for 13 years, and afterwards retrained to teach children with special needs. Moira is joint founder and main conductor of Suffolk Branch of the SRP, founder and conductor of the Eastern Recorder Orchestra (EROS), co-ordinator of the 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2022 national SRP festivals and tutor for the Recorder Summer School. She runs SRP workshops on conducting, unbarred music and the Tudors plus she conducts workshops and recorder events. Moira is currently chair of the Walter Bergmann Fund.
Anna Stegmann is a passionate performer and teacher of early and contemporary recorder music. She teaches an enthusiastic, selected group of next generation recorder-professionals at the Royal Academy of Music in London and is a regular guest teacher at the Junior’s Department at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and Wells Cathedral School. She has performed in concert halls across the globe and recorded several CDs with her own groups Ensemble Odyssee and The Royal Wind Music, as well as performing as guest soloist with La Risonanza, The New Dutch Academy, and others. With duo partner, violinist Jorge Jiménez she shares a passion for unconventional programming. They combine original and arranged music from across the centuries, including improvisation and electronics, resulting in programmes that take the listener on a musical journey which is “convincing and exciting, distinguished and enthralling, and highly entertaining.” (Susanne Schulte, 2019). Since 2013 Anna has co-organised the Open Recorder Days Amsterdam; a biennial festival, which has quickly grown into one of the biggest recorder events worldwide and brings together recorder amateurs and professionals alike from all across the globe. In 2020 she established her own digital recital series with of solo and chamber music.