Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, YMF 2003
![[Millennium Ensemble]](images/2003/millennium160.jpg)
The Millennium Ensemble is the College's twentieth-/twenty-first-century ensemble and has a flexible line-up of players appropriate to the wide range of music which it plays. Programmes draw upon core classical repertoire of the late twentieth century (from Boulez, Berio and Xenakis to Reich, Zappa and Torke), occasionally venture further back in time to earlier composers (notably Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire - Satie and Varèse) and, from time to time, feature works by students and staff of the RWCMD. Outside events have included participation in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the State of the Nation Festival held in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London last March.
The line-up varies from small chamber ensembles - such as tonight's group - to larger, sinfonietta-sized forces. Conductors who have worked with the Millennium Ensemble include Peter Esswood, Julian Jacobson and Michael Rafferty. Its Artistic Director and administrator is Timothy Raymond.
Emma Collins (flute) graduated from the RWCMD in 2001 and has since been enjoying a career that combines performance and teaching with further study. As a member of several chamber groups (including Percussive Flusion and the Rene Quintet), she performs regularly across the UK. An advocate of contemporary music, Emma is currently involved in projects that aim to make new music accessible to audiences of all ages.
Graham Jones (clarinet) studied first with Gill Thorn, and whilst at the University of Hull was engaged in wide-ranging activities of chamber and orchestral playing, commissioning a couple of works for clarinet and a duet with euphonium. Since joining the RWCMD, he has worked in many different genres, and as a singer in the bbcncw As a clarinetist, he has enjoyed performing contemporary music and is now exploring electronically-enhanced performance techniques with tuition from John Reynolds and Robert Plane.
Esen-Nikolas Gjylaci (violin) was born in Tirana in 1981. He started learning the violin at the age of six in the Kongresi i Permetit primary school of music. In 1990, his family moved to Corfu and he continued his violin studies with Flora Klimi and later on with the great soloist Giannis Georgiadis. At the age of fifteen he won first prize in the Panhellenic Music High School Competition. He has studied in the RNCM with Ben Holland and Malcolm Layfield. Now he is continuing his studies with Lucy Gould at the RWCMD.
Sarah Stevens (cello) started playing the cello from the age of nine. Teachers have included Adrian Shepherd mbe and Douglas Cummings. She has participated in masterclasses with Robert Cohen, Pal Banda, Leonid Gorokhev and Alban Gerhardt. Since joining the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Sarah has been a member of the Rowe Quartet, who have performed at a variety of functions and had masterclasses with the Allegri, Schidlof, Delme, Eroica and Emperor Quartets. Future engagements include a performance of Walton's String Quartet at Lady Walton's house in Italy.
Sarah is currently in her post-graduate year, and is learning from Penny Driver. She has been a member of the Millennium Ensemble for three years.
Taina Niemelä (piano) was born in 1979 and started playing the piano at the age of seven in Lapland, Finland. She commenced her professional music studies in 1998, studying with Ludmila Lyssenko in Oulun Conservatoire and later with Jari Salmela in Tampere Conservatoire. She came to Cardiff three years ago to study with Richard McMahon at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. There she completed her Bachelor of Music last summer. She is currently on the Masters of Music degree course at RWCMD.
Matthew Davison (sound diffusion) is originally from Worcestershire where he studied his music A-level. Initially his foremost interest was in percussion, but he increasingly became involved with electronic music and as a result is now studying for a degree in music technology at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. He has written music for dance performances, museum installations and has performed in many live bands throughout Cardiff as a drummer and pianist.
Peter Esswood, the conductor of tonight's first piece, studied at the Royal College of Music and has since enjoyed a distinguished areer as a cellist with leading orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He continues to play with many London orchestras and as a member of the Ariosi String Quartet has appeared on tv programmes Top of the Pops, Everyman, Horizon, and in a solo capcity has recorded incidental music for tv and radio. He frequently coaches and conducts many youth orchestras and was a professor of Orchestral Training at the Royal college of Muisc Junior Department until 1997. Appointed Director of Chamber Music in the Aberdeen International Festival of Youth for 2000, Peter's commitment to String Pedagogy has been given wide recognition and he is currently Chaiman of the European String Teachers' Association (ESTA).
Programme details | Pictures from 2002: [1] [2]