MATTHEW ORANGE was born in London in 1978 and began his musical studies in piano and flute. At the age of 15 he started playing the bassoon and in 1997 went on to study bassoon at the Royal College of Music with Martin Gatt and Julie Price; also studying flute as second study with Christopher Hyde-Smith. Having gained BMus (Hons) at the Royal College of Music in 2001, he won a full scholarship for a postgraduate diploma at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Gareth Newman and John Orford, and received a distinction in 2002.
Matthew has won various prizes within R.C.M. and R.A.M. including bassoon prizes and chamber music prizes at both conservatoires. He received Silver Medal in the Shell LSO Music Scholarship in 2001, including a concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Matthew has worked with many eminent conductors, such as Jan Pascal Tortelier, Sir Colin Davis, Marin Alsop and in 2003, as a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra, working with Ashkenazy, playing in a London Prom, and in the Concertgebouw with Haitink.
He has worked in Portugal with the Algarve Symphony Orchestra, and regularly worked with the Hallé Orchestra, Manchester, the Nash Ensemble of London, and in 2003, on trial for Principal Bassoon with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.
He has been on trial for Principal with BBC National Orchestra of Wales from 2003-2004 and is now a Guest Principal. He is at present on trial with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, since September 2004, for Co-Principal Bassoon, and is auditioning for second bassoon in the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam in January 2005.

BETHANY PHILLIPS has recently completed a two-year postgraduate diploma in piano accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Julius Drake and Aaron Shorr, and was awarded a distinction for her final recital. While at the R.A.M., she won a number of prizes for piano accompaniment, including the Friends of R.A.M.’s Wigmore Award, and the Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize, and received commendations in several competitions for chamber music. Prior to this she read music at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating in 2000 with a first class degree and the university’s prize for the best performance in the final recital examinations.
Bethany participated in many masterclasses at the R.A.M. with Colin Carr, Rudolf Jansen, Malcolm Martineau, Kazuki Sawa and Robert Tear; and with Menahem Pressler at the 2002 Oxford International Piano Festival.
Bethany enjoys collaborating with both instrumentalists and singers, and recent performances have included recitals for cello and piano at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the National Portrait Gallery and the University of London’s Senate House; recitals with singers at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, at Regent Hall and in Bristol, Suffolk and Kent; and two early evening concerts of quintets and trios for piano and woodwinds, as part of the “Mostly Mozart” festival at the Barbican Centre.