Lewis Riley - jazz bands, theory - lewis.riley@samstotnes.org.uk

Born in Lancashire, Lewis studied at Dartington College of Arts and Rolle College, Exmouth. After teaching at a school in the Midlands, he became head of music at Dartington Hall School before it’s closure in 1987. Since then he has pursued a freelance career, mainly as a teacher of jazz, in group workshops and for individual piano students, working in schools, colleges and arts centres. He has also led, performed in, and composed for, various Devon-based jazz groups, ranging from trios to a 14-piece big band. In 1992 he completed the BPhil (Ed) Creative Arts in Education degree at the University of Exeter.

As well as being administrator for SaMS, and running the junior and senior jazz groups, he teaches individuals at home and is an Associate Lecturer at Dartington College of Arts.

Lewis was a founder member of the Totnes Jazz Collective, which promotes local musicians and encourages new work. In 1998 he produced a book “Starting to Improvise Jazz Piano” published by Boosey and Hawkes, now sadly out of print. From 1997 until 2000 he worked for Dartington Arts, programming concerts for the Great Hall.

One-off projects have included working as a PRS “composer-in- residence” at three schools in West Cornwall (1996-7) and two National Lottery funded projects taking the 14-piece “Totnes Jazz Collective Big Band“ into local schools for workshops and performances.

Louise Appleby - folk group, clarinet

Louise Appleby was born locally and has been performing since the age of six when she became passionately involved with the classical guitar. At the age of eleven she took up the clarinet and played in a local jazz band. She furthered her studies after completing her music exams by studying for a BA in music at Dartington College of Arts in 1994. While there her musical interests were challenged and also broadened as she developed a strong interest for eastern European folk music and formed together with other graduates a five piece eastern European folk group Shavali.

After college she toured extensively in Britain, France, Holland, Belgium and Germany. She also became involved in a project in Norway directed by the director of theatre in Stockholm and toured for eight weeks with a circus there.

She has conducted workshops and masterclasses and given lectures about Bulgarian folk music after doing extensive research in the country itself; this forged links with the National Folk Academy in Kotel in eastern Bulgaria and Louise has now organised two tours of England and Scotland for a Bulgarian ensemble in collaboration with Shavali, which was supported by the Local Arts Council. The main aim of her organisation Eastern European Connections is to bring over professional musicians from eastern Europe and allow all members of society to experience this beautifully preserved tradition.

Louise performs also on classical guitar classical repertoire and Mediterranean and Spanish music for private and public events.

Louise has taught for many years now, and runs both the junior and senior folk groups at SaMS.
 

Peter Scott - junior starter music

Sam Massey - brass, theory

Carol studied music at Dartington College of Arts, Converse College, SC, USA, The Royal College of Music, London and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Musicales, Montreux.

She was a member of the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet orchestras and also worked as a freelance violinist in London playing with various groups including the Academy of the BBC, Bournemouth Symphony, Richard Hickox and Max Jaffa Orchestras.

Her teaching experience include teaching the violin at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music, International Cello Centre, London Borough of Sutton, Hertfordshire County Council, Dartington Hall School, Exeter School, Exeter Cathedral School, KEVICC, Dartington Primary School. At SaMS she has a number of violin pupils and runs a string group.

Carol is also a landscape photographer and is a founder member of Arts Live who present live performances, exhibitions and workshops combining music, photography and poetry.

Kathryn Northcott - drums and percussion -  katdav@blueyonder.co.uk

Kathryn was born in Cardiff. She was awarded an instrumental scholarship in 1989 at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, and in 1995 she gained a BMus (Hons) degree at Birmingham Conservatoire. She has had professional performing experience in many fields, including orchestral, stage musical productions and jazz ensembles, both in the UK and abroad.

During her career she has directed many percussion ensembles, workshops, and residential courses. She brings to SaMS a wide range of teaching experience gained from various counties throughout the country, and we are delighted that she has been able to start up a new tuned percussion ensemble on a Saturday morning.

Keith Jones - keyboard

Steve Verge - guitar group and individual guitar lessons

Alex Roth - individual guitar lessons

Jane Lopresti - choir, senior percussion, sing & play

Jane was born and brought up in London. Before moving to Devon she lived in Bristol for 12 years where she taught piano, ran music workshops in schools and community centres and worked as music director for a theatre company. Having become increasingly interested in world music Jane came to Devon in 1989 to do a degree course in music at Dartington College of Arts. Here she studied, among other things, jazz soprano saxophone, African drumming and Gamelan.

Since graduating from Dartington in 1992 Jane has had two children (Molly, aged 10 and Tilda, aged 5) who, for a while, took over from the music. Jane now works mainly for SaMS both on a Saturday morning and during the week doing outreach work in local primary schools. She is also a member of the salsa band ‘Siga la Salsa’ playing timbales, soprano sax and doing vocal harmonies.

Kate Graham - flute, theory, sing & play

Kate Graham - flute

Jill Bird, David Blood, Polly Morrow, Lewis Riley, Sue Snell, Kath Northcott, Jane Lopresti, Carole Saint, Sam Massey, Anna Speedy