Summer Schools tutors

Laurence Cummings is one of Britain’s most exciting and versatile exponents of historical performance both as conductor and harpsichord player. He is currently Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music, Musical Director of the London Handel Festival since 1999 and Artistic Director of the Internationale Händel-Festpiele Göttingen since 2012, as well as acting as Music Director for Orquestra Barroca Casa da Musica Porto. He is the William Crotch Professor of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music and remains a trustee of the Handel House Museum.

Croatian-born violinist Bojan Čičić specialises in repertoire ranging from the late 16th century to the Romantic violin concertos of Mendelssohn and Beethoven. He has recently appeared as a soloist with the Kioi Hall Chamber Orchestra Tokyo and with Instruments of Time and Truth in violin concertos by Mendelssohn and Beethoven. He is the leader of the Academy of Ancient Music and the Music Director of the Illyria Consort. In 2016 Bojan was appointed Professor of Baroque Violin at the Royal College of Music; he is passionate about training the next generation of instrumentalists in historically informed playing styles. Visit Bojan Čičić’s website.

Mark is one of Britain‘s leading performers on Baroque cello and viola da gamba. Since the 1970s, he has played with most of London‘s period-instrument ensembles, including the Consort of Musicke, the Taverner Players, the English Baroque Soloists, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Brandenburg Consort and the Parley of Instruments. He then relocated to Poland, where he has worked with groups such as Concerto Polacco, L‘Arte dei Suonatori, and his own group Harmonia Parnassia. He has performed as principal cellist with Concerto Copenhagen and as continuo player for the Drottningholm Festival in Sweden and the English National Opera in London. Mark is a prolific recording artist. His recorded repertoire includes Telemann‘s Concerto for recorder and bass viol (with L‘Arte Suonatori, for the Swedish label BIS) and a disc of virtuoso bass viol music from 18th-century England entitled The Noble Bass Viol (with members of the Parley of Instruments, for Hyperion). In addition to his work as a performer, he also builds violins.

Leo is the Principal Oboist of the Academy of Ancient Music and appears regularly as guest-principal with, among others, the English Baroque Soloists, the Sixteen, the Dunedin Consort, Arcangelo, La Nuova Musica and the English Concert, and is also a member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He performs regularly at the BBC Proms and the Glyndebourne Festival and has toured worldwide. As a chamber musician and concerto soloist, he has performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and live on BBC Radio 3.
Visit his website for more information.

Mary Collins is an Early Dance specialist whose research and teaching approach has inspired musicians to look afresh at the dance music that is at the heart of the baroque repertoire bringing, in turn, a fresh perspective on the great composers of the baroque era. A practitioner and researcher, she has worked with music, dance, theatre and TV companies as adviser, choreographer, dancer and actress, touring regularly to give masterclasses, concerts, lecture-recitals and workshops. Mary teaches at the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music in London and receives frequent invitations to conservatoires throughout Europe. A faculty member of Aestas Musica in Croatia, the Austria Barokakademie and, for 26 years, the Ringve International Summer Course in Norway, she is in constant collaboration with many of the world’s leading exponents of early music. Visit Mary Collins’ website.

Passionate about consort singing, Clare’s expressive singing and personal warmth have won her a legion of fans. Her musical gods are Bach and Byrd, but she enjoys plenty more; many new songs have also been written for her, including a number by her late father Stephen. She has made recordings with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Andrew Parrott, the Dunedin Consort, Fretwork, the Rose Consort of Viols, Alamire and Ensemble Plus Ultra, among others; a number of her disks have won Gramophone awards and nominations. She is also a member of I Fagiolini, with whom she enjoys a broad spectrum of musical experiences, from staged Monteverdi madrigals to banana gags; she also enjoys a regular collaboration with Jacob Heringman. Clare lives in Belgium with her husband and two small sons, and is more often to be heard singing Flemish nursery rhymes than anything else at present – she appreciates the musical variety that different phases of life can bring. For more information, visit Clare Wilkinson’s website.

For 36 years, the American-born lutenist Jacob Heringman has made his home in England, where he is established as a leading soloist and chamber musician. Jacob has released several highly acclaimed solo renaissance lute recordings, including two groundbreaking discs of Josquin intabulations (most recently, Inviolata in 2021 for the 500th anniversary of Josquin’s death). He has had the good fortune to work regularly with many fine singers, including Emma Kirkby, Barbara Bonney and Michael Chance. Recent projects include concert and recording collaborations with singers John Potter, Anna Maria Friman and Clare Wilkinson; and instrumentalists Ariel Abramovich, Elizabeth Kenny, Susanna Pell and the late ‘ūd player Adel Salameh. Jacob appears on many film soundtracks (including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Hobbit, and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and Kingdom of Heaven) and the occasional pop album (Joni Mitchell’s Travelogue, for example), and is active in the areas of improvised and crossover music, as well as transcription, arrangement, and teaching (both online and in person). His training as a teacher of the Alexander Technique greatly influences his lute playing and teaching. In 2011, Jacob gave up all work-related air travel, and only accepts performing opportunities he can reach by train. For more information, visit www.heringman.com.

Giles Underwood has a varied career as a bass-baritone, voice teacher, vocal coach and conductor. He is a Professor of Singing at the Royal Academy of Music, having taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) before that. He studied Biology at Oxford, and went on to postgraduate and opera studies at GSMD under Professor Susan McCulloch. He runs a successful teaching practice in Oxford and taught in Cambridge from 2004 to 2013. Since 2013, he has been Director of Music at University College, Oxford. Giles has sung with many of the UK’s leading vocal ensembles, most notably I Fagiolini, Contrapunctus, Magnificat and Gallicantus. He has also been a soloist for the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and has performed a variety of operatic roles. This is his second year as tutor at the Cambridge Early Music Summer School.