Tutors

Here are our wonderful Tutors for RSS 2026.

• Tom Beets is one of the most exciting recorder players of our time as well as an inspiring recorder and viol teacher. He has delighted audiences and pupils at venues around the world both as an individual and as a member of various ensembles .Tom has been a thriving force as both a playing member and administrator of The Flanders Recorder Quartet. He teaches in Belgium and leads masterclasses and workshops across Europe, in the Far East, and in the USA. Since 2013, Tom has organised and conducted over 100 recorder orchestra days, He was elected Vice-President of the Society of Recorder Players in 2015 for his achievements in the UK recorder world. As a member of the Flanders Recorder Quartet, he was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award of the American Recorder Society. The most recent project is FR2 with Joris Van Goethem. Tom is also a viola de gamba player.
  
  
• Recorder player and harpsichordist Mathis Wolfer performs internationally at renowned festivals in Europe. Recordings of his performances have been broadcast by Deutschlandfunk, SWR, WDR, and ORF. As a soloist, he has appeared with ensembles including Capricornus Consort Basel, La Risonanza Barockorchester, and the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra. Enthusiastic about both early and contemporary music, he regularly performs with various chamber music ensembles, such as ensemble feuervogel and Apollos Cabinet. He has won prizes at national and international competitions. After studying with Prof. Jean-Christophe Dijoux and Prof. Stefan Temmingh at Freiburg University of Music, Mathis Wolfer is currently continuing his studies with Prof. Andreas Böhlen at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Beginning in the winter semester 2025/26, he will teach at Freiburg University of Music.
  
  
• James Brookmyre performs as a recorder and clarinet soloist, chamber and orchestral musician with leading ensembles in the UK and abroad where these engagements have taken him across Europe, USA, and the Middle East. He holds teaching positions at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and Cardiff University. He recently premiered Lynne Plowman’s Bird Music for recorders and piano, is preparing a recital of the Bach flute sonatas on voice flute and harpsichord, and performed Telemann’s Concerto for Recorder and Viola da Gamba with Reiko Ichise, directed by Rachel Podger. James is currently pursuing a PhD in musicology at Cardiff University, where he holds the department scholarship, and is Producer for the Brecon Baroque Festival.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Ian Wilson is the Head of Woodwind at Eton College, the principal recorder professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and is the visiting recorder specialist at the North East of Scotland Music School in his hometown of Aberdeen. He studied recorder and clarinet at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he won the woodwind prize twice and gained the Principal’s Prize upon graduation. Other prizes include the Skene Award, a LASMO Staffa Music Award and the Van Wassenaer Competition’s Musica Antica Prize for best individual musician. As well as the The Flautadors, Ian is a member of the Burney Players and regularly performs concertos with the Adderbury Ensemble. He has performed as a soloist with many of Europe’s period instrument orchestras.
  
  
• Anna Stegmann is an acclaimed performer and educator, celebrated for her artistry in both early and contemporary recorder repertoire. She holds a professorship at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she mentors emerging professional recorder players, and is a regular guest tutor at Wells Cathedral School.
  Renowned for her expressive playing and stylistic versatility, Anna has performed and taught masterclasses across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. She has recorded extensively with Ensemble Odyssee and The Royal Wind Music, and appears frequently as a soloist and chamber musician with groups such as La Risonanza, L’Arpeggiata, and Musica Sequenza.
  With violinist Jorge Jiménez, she explores imaginative, genre-defying programming that blends original and arranged works with improvisation and electronics. Their performances offer a distinctive experience described as “convincing and exciting, distinguished and enthralling, and highly entertaining” (Susanne Schulte, 2019).
  Since 2013, Anna has co-directed Open Recorder Days Amsterdam – one of the world’s leading recorder festivals, uniting professionals and amateurs alike. In 2020, she launched a digital recital series featuring solo and chamber repertoire, available on her website and YouTube channel.