The Asyla Ensemble

Makoto Nakata, violin

Makoto recently graduated from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford with a First-Class Honours in Music. She will be continuing her studies at the Royal Academy of Music from September. She began violin lessons at the age of five and gained a place at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music two years later where she was the recipient of numerous awards. Makoto was awarded first prize in the Oxford Philomusica Concerto 2013 competition performing the Korngold Violin Concerto.

 

Makoto's professional orchestral engagements include performing with the Oxford Philomusica in numerous concerts under their Apprenticeship scheme and performing with The Aurora Orchestra at a BBC prom. She also won a place on the LSO String Academy in 2014 and was awarded their Candide Award for Outstanding performance. Makoto is very grateful to be the current holder of the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Busenhart Morgan Evans Award.

 

Amy Roberts, oboe

Amy Roberts has recently graduated from the Joint Course between the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Manchester studying oboe with Jonathan Small and baroque oboe with Tony Robson. In concerts she has recently played with the BBC Philharmonic, Hallé and Mahler Chamber Orchestras both in the UK and abroad.

 

She recently won the 2015 RNCM Concerto Competition and in September she will start her MA at The Royal Academy of Music in London with Chris Cowie and Melanie Ragge, supported by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Dorothy Grinstead Memorial Fund.

 

 

 

Miriam Nerval, treble recorder

Miriam studied with Ian Wilson, Robert Ehrlich and Pamela Thorby at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Recent performance highlights include appearing as a soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra and ‘The Recorder of London’ featuring Simon Callow at the Old Bailey.

 

She is the first recorder player to be named BBC Music Magazine’s Rising Star: Great Artist of Tomorrow and was asked by Classic FM to give a recorder lesson to Top Gear’s James May. She is grateful for the support she receives as an award winner with the City Music Foundation and Help Musicians UK.

 

 

Hamish Brown, composer

Hamish was born in 1993 and grew up in Marlborough, Wiltshire. He is currently studying at the Royal College of Music for an MPerf in Piano Accompaniment with Simon Lepper and Roger Vignoles, and previously read music at the University of Manchester, graduating with first class honours. He has gained DipABRSM and LRSM diplomas, both with distinction, in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

 

Hamish is a composer and arranger of many chamber and solo works. He has studied composition with Richard Whalley, Camden Reeves and Kevin Malone, and his music has been performed by Vaganza, the Quatuor Danel, and at the New Music North West Festival in 2012 and 2013.

 

Will Handysides, composer

Composer Will Handysides is interested in meditative, non-climactic forms. His music unfolds slowly and is contemplative, focussing on stasis and hypnotic repetition. Notable collaborators include Composers Ensemble, Bit20 Ensemble, Onyx Brass, Trondheim Sinfonietta, and Tête-à-Tête; conductors Gerry Cornelius and Nicholas Cleobury; and venues St. John’s Smith Square, Grieghallen and Riverside Studios.

 

Will received First Class Honours from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. He won the TCM Silver Medal for Composition in 2014. He studied at Griegakademiet in Bergen, Norway; and with Detlev Glanert on the Dartington Advanced Composition Course 2012 (thanks to Michael Tippett Foundation).