Lisa Nelsen was born and raised on a pig farm in Western Canada and enjoys an international career as a soloist, chamber musician and educator.

A past member of the Britten Pears Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestras of Holland and Canada, she began her professional career playing in the flute sections of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra. Her recitals with piano have taken her to concert halls in Norway, Finland, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Holland, Ireland, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, as well as throughout Canada and the United States. She frequently appears at festivals and concert series in Britain, and gave her London début recital at the South Bank. She is Solo Flute of the contemporary music group Continuum Ensemble in London, England and is a founding member of the New London Chamber Ensemble. She has given a one-woman recital at the Swaledale Festival, NorthYorkshire and was also a special guest artist at the first International Flute Festival in Örebro, Sweden. She has had several pieces written for her by composers such as Kenneth Hesketh, Roderick Watkins and Paul Max Edlin, recording them for BBC Radio. In February 2006 Lisa toured across the Canadian Prairies as a Powell/Sonaré Flutes’ Artist.

Lisa was appointed Specialist Flute Teacher for Wells Cathedral School in 2001 and is a visiting instructor at several colleges in Britain. She coaches the wind players at the National Youth Chamber Orchestra and the Main Orchestra of the National Children’s Orchestra. In the summer of 2002, Lisa was appointed as Co-Artistic Director of the Harrogate International Flute Summer School along with Paul Edmund-Davies. From 1997-2001 Lisa was a member of the British Flute Society council. She also collaborated with Liz Goodwin on the highly successful “ Project: Flutewise” bringing a variety of flute workshops to young players aged 7 to 17.

While working as a consultant for Boosey and Hawkes for 3 years Lisa gave masterclasses all over Europe, including the Norwegian State Conservatoire in Oslo, the Bruckner Academy in Linz, Austria, and the Dublin Conservatoire. She has given a recital and masterclass at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, and classes at the Boston Conservatory and Boston University in the United States. Several of her upcoming appearances are made possible with the support of Verne Q Powell and Sonaré Flutes.

Melanie Ragge has two principal musical passions - chamber music and education. Although originally a Medic at King’s College, Cambridge, she graduated with a MPhil in musicology, writing her final thesis on Stravinsky’s early neoclassicism. She went on to study performance as a Leverhulme Fellow at the Royal College of Music, where she was awarded exhibitions both as a pianist and oboist; she studied piano with Phyllis Sellick, oboe and cor anglais with Michael Winfield, and contemporary oboe with Edwin Roxburgh. She also subsequently took lessons from the German oboist Thomas Indermuhle.

Whilst at the RCM, she performed a duo with Ann Martin-Davis, with a special interest in performing and commissioning new works. They were awarded a residency at the Banff International Performing Arts Centre in Canada where they premièred a new commission by Sam King in the Banff International Festival. In 1998 they recorded Lutoslawski’s Epitaph for ASV, as part of Ann Martn-Davis’ CD of his piano chamber music: “everything is exquisitely and cleanly played” … BBC Music Magazine. This, and a new commission In memoriam Lutoslawski by the young Polish composer Maciej Zielinski they subsequently performed in the Lutoslawski memorial concert.

As well as being a founder member of the nlce, Melanie has performed as a concerto soloist both in England and abroad and freelances as an orchestral player. She has also worked as a recitalist with the harpsichordist Ariadne Blyth and countertenor Stephen Taylor, and performed with the Campbell Wind Ensemble, with whom she premièred Julian Philips’ Piano and Wind Sextet. As a tutor and/or artist in residence at the Swaledale and Aberystwyth Festivals she has performed the Mozart Quartet with the Dante and Schidlof string quartets. Her solo and chamber performances have taken her to a wide variety of diverse destinations, including Malta, Sweden and the Pacific Rim, as well as more ‘conventional’ venues such as St John’s, Smith Square and Wigmore Hall.

Melanie’s teaching and coaching consumes the remainder of her professional life; she teaches the oboists at the Purcell School of Music and is a Professor of Oboe at the Royal Academy of Music. She has given a number of masterclasses, coaches for Chamber Music International, is an adjudicator and also an Associate Director and tutor for the National Youth Chamber Orchestra.

Susanna Stranders began her musical training with Harpenden Musicale. In 1998, she graduated from Exeter University with a first-class honours degree in music, having won the major performance prize. With support from the Harpenden Music Foundation, she then completed two years as a postgraduate accompanist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, where she won the Accompanists’ Prize, the Schubert Lieder Prize, the John Ireland Prize and the Armourer’s and Brazier’s Prize. Susanna spent a third year at the GSMD as a répétiteur on the Opera Course

As opera coach at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, she was supported by the Sir Henry Richardson Award (Musicians Benevolent Fund) 2000-02 and a bursary from the Magro Foundation. She was répétiteur for Cincinnati Opera in 2002 and for San Francisco Opera’s Merola Programme in the summer of 2003. In 2003-04, she was a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Texas.

Susanna was a répétiteur on the Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden between 2004-2006. Since then, she has been working regularly for the ROH, for the Glyndebourne Festival and Tour, for the Philharmonia orchestra, for the Festspiele and Landestheater, Salzburg, in masterclasses with José Cura for New Devon Opera, has accompanied Bryn Terfel in recital and has broadcast live for the BBC.

Susanna is a Senior Opera Coach at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and for the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, on the staff at Oxenfoord International Summer School and is resident pianist for the Musicale Young Artists Programme.