Sara Stowe - Soprano, percussion
One of Britain most versatile performers, Sara first studied piano and harpsichord at the Royal College of Music where she won a scholarship, the continuo and the Raymond Russell harpsichord prizes. A British Council award and vocal studies in Italy followed and she met and worked with Luciano Berio.

Her ability to characterise her voice in so many different styles has led her to perform and record with a wide range of new and early music groups including: Matthew Spring (broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 , Classic FM and recording on Chandos), The Academy of Ancient Music (Decca), New London Consort (Decca), the Broadside Band, Sinfonye, James Wood (Continuum), Gemini and Singcircle. She has also featured twice on BBC Radio 4© Woman Hour. www.oxfordimedia.com/sara.html

Wendy Hancock - Recorders, flute and viols

Wendy is a music graduate of Exeter University. After gaining an MA in the Interpretation and Editing of Renaissance and Baroque Music at Nottingham University, she continued her research into 17th-century English music for an M.Phil, entitled 'The Origins of Basso Continuo in England 1585-1625'.

She has studied the baroque recorder with Michel Piguet and the baroque flute with Lisa Beznosiuk and Rachel Brown. For ten years she was editor of Chelys, the journal of the Viola da Gamba Society, and is still very interested in the viols and their music. In Nottingham she founded the Holme Pierrepont Opera Trust for the performance of Baroque opera on period instruments, and in 1985 founded Musica Donum Dei. Wendy has revised the entries pre-1700 of the Penguin Dictionary of Music, and written extensively for Encarta on musical subjects. She now performs, teaches, writes, reviews and edits and also teaches part-time for Nottingham University. Her musical interests are wide-ranging, but she is particularly interested in 17th and 18th century performance-practice and placing works in an (entertaining!) historical context. Her interests apart from music include mythology, history, the visual arts, literature and cookery and she is currently teaching courses on performance-practice and Handel. www.philidors.co.uk.

Ian Gammie - Viola da gamba

Ian Gammie is known primarily as a viola da gamba specialist, having for many years been a driving force in the English Consort of Viols.

His first love, however, was the guitar and he is an expert performer on a wide variety of early plucked instruments. He is also an authority on the Irish poet/balladeer Thomas Moore. www.boxandfir.com/PAGES/performers/gammie.htm.

Richard MacKenzie - Theorbo, Baroque guitar, Renaissance lute

Lutenist Richard MacKenzie is rapidly gaining recognition as a soloist and collaborative artist on Renaissance and Baroque lutes, Renaissance and Baroque guitars, vihuela, orpharion and theorbo.

In 2011 Richard completed a degree in music at The Queen's College, University of Oxford. Whilst studying at the university he was also a keen solo performer, performing seven solo recitals in some of the most diverse concert venues across Oxford. Presently he continues to occasionally study lute with the internationally renowned lutenists Jakob Lindberg and Jacob Heringman, having previously studied at Chetham's School of Music with Hugh Cherry and Martin Shepherd, a school where has was awarded three prizes, including those for 'Early Music' and for 'Academic Music'. In 2012 the Lute Society of Great Britain published his first edition, a critical edition and reconstruction of the ensemble works from Giovanni Battista Granata's Armoniosi Toni (Bologna, 1684). Richard also possesses diplomas in recorder and clarinet performance, and was principal clarinettist for the National Children's Orchestra in his youth.

Richard is an experienced recorder, guitar, piano and academic music tutor, tutoring up to A-Level, and also tutoring ABRSM theory grades. He has taught lute seminars and masterclasses involving members of the student community both at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance and the University of Chichester. Richard also has conducting and piano accompanimental experience, once directing a staged performance of Handel's 'The Choice of Hercules'. www.richardmackenzie.site50.net/1_4_About.html.

Josep i Maria (Spanish and Catalan Folksongs and Villancicos for Christmas)