THE MUSICIANS
Howard Moody has a versatile career as a composer, conductor and keyboard player. As a conductor he aims to generate innovative and exciting events that break down barriers between different styles of music as well as commission new works. He is principal conductor and artistic director of Sarum Orchestra and has also conducted the BBC SO, the Hallé, Bournemouth Orchestras, RLPO, Ulster Orchestra, Orchestra delle Toscana, Opera Factory, Icelandic Opera, Netherlands Radio Chorus, Romanian State Chorus, Schola Cantorum, Salisbury Festival Chorus, and numerous choral groups throughout Europe. He has been music director on projects for the LSO and Norwich Theatre Royal and the BBC as well in the West End. He has also worked on the music staff of ENO and Glyndebourne. Recordings include BBC, Netherlands Radio, Chandos, and ECM.
Commissions as a composer include ENO, Salisbury Festival, Southern Cathedrals Festival, CMW, Bangladesh Festival, Station House Opera, Jack De Johnette, The National Forest Project, the Anvil, Drake Music Scotland and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has written a Requiem with the flamenco guitarist Paco Peña and has arranged music for John Surman and Marianne Faithfull.
As a keyboard player he plays harpsichord, organ, fortepiano, modern piano and synthesizers. He has a long standing duo partnership with cellist David Watkin with whom he has recorded the Beethoven Cello Sonatas. He is also keyboard player for the English Baroque Soloists and has played with the SCO, ASMF and OSJ as well as in ensembles with members of the OAE and the LSO.
As an improviser he is currently touring international jazz festivals with John Surman, following the release of the ECM album for saxophone and organ Rain on the Window.
Melanie Pappenheim is a singer, performer and composer. She has worked with many leading contemporary composers, including Gavin Bryars, Graham Fitkin and Orlando Gough, and has developed a particularly close working relationship with Jocelyn Pook. She is a member of the Jocelyn Pook Ensemble and has collaborated on scores for TV, films and documentaries, radio, theatre and dance. Last summer she performed Jocelyn’s music for the award winning St Joan at the National Theatre. Apart from her contribution to the music of Doctor Who, Melanie’s voice can be heard on soundtracks to Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and Derek Jarman’s The Garden and Edward II.
Always interested in combining music with visual art, Melanie has devised work with leading multimedia artists and groups including DV8 Physical Theatre, Lumiere & Son, Helen Chadwick and vocal big band The Shout, of which she was a founder member. Recent work in this field has included appearances in new work by Jeremy Peyton Jones (Against Oblivion) and Orlando Gough and Emma Bernard (Swarm at the Barbican theatre, Critical Mass for the Almeida Opera Festival and Fingerprint at the Linbury Theatre).
Film appearances include The Alien, for which she perfected the art of singing backwards and DV8’s Strange Fish, which was a winner of the Prix Italia.
Melanie’s work as a composer has included music for theatre and radio drama including two series for BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour (David Copperfield and The Old Curiosity Shop) and a sound installation for the Forbury Gardens in Reading.
She is currently developing a companion piece to be performed with the successful music theatre duet Flam at the Tete a Tete Opera Festival at the Riverside Studios in August and a new work for Palace Intrusions to be performed in the grounds of Wells Cathedral in September.
Lucy Railton graduated with a 1st class honours degree from the Royal Academy of Music in June 2008 and has since been working as freelance musician in London. She is a member of the London Contemporary Orchestra and played with the London Sinfonietta for the Luigi Nono Festival at the South Bank Centre in 2008. In 2006 she was fortunate to win the exchange scheme with the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston who sponsored a year of study for her in the USA. She has taken master classes with cellists such as Robert Cohen, Alexander Bailey and Raphael Wallfische. As a keen improviser Lucy has been involved with many creative music projects including the Jacob Wick Ensemble in New York, Senegalese Kora Player - Kadialy Kouyate and Klezmer fusion band, Oi Va Voi. She has a passion for jazz, world music, contemporary improvisation and the creative arts in geneal. She is currently curating concerts for the London based Kammer Klang Ensemble which focuses on performances of modern and electronic music.
Sophie Harris studied with William Pleeth, then at Chethams School Of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, winning the Sir John Barbirolli Prize, the Terence Weil Prize, and two Martin Music Trust Scholarships.
She spent five years with the award-winning Smith Quartet, and left to concentrate on a solo career, working with eminent composers including Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman and Steve Reich, and diverse talents such as Kevin Volans, Django Bates and Egberto Gismonte. She collaborated with composer Jocelyn Pook to create and perform the solo cello track for the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s film “Eyes Wide Shut” and with Gavin Bryars on a specially commissioned trio for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Sophie Harris has had several works commissioned for her, and plays a wide repertoire in her extensive performances, CD recordings and frequent radio broadcasts with many of Britain's leading chamber ensembles- including the Brodsky Quartet, the Balanescue Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble and the Gavin Bryars Ensemble.
Currently Sophie is the cellist in the Duke Quartet, Her cello is made by Daniel Parker in 1730.
