Woodwind Department Staff
Fiona Hudson
Subjects Taught
Oboe / Cor Anglais / Piano / Theory / GCSE / Composition
Qualifications
BA, LTCL, PGCE
Fiona studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, followed by a Post Graduate year at Trinity College of Music, London. She worked as a freelance oboist and session musician, before ending up as a recording engineer for EMI Music at Abbey Road.
Since completing her PGCE, she taught in Worcestershire for 16 years and has especially enjoyed bringing her academic and practical skills to the classroom. She plays regularly with various orchestras, chamber groups and continues to enjoy specialist wind teaching/coaching and delights in the challenges of organising new musical adventures. Fiona is currently Director of Music at Sibford School in Oxfordshire.
Andy Watts
Subjects Taught
Recorder / Bassoon / Recorder Consort
Multi-instrumentalist Andy Watts is Associate Principal Bassoon with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the UK’s leading period instrument orchestra, and founder and director of folk/early music group The Carnival Band. After graduating from Cambridge University he studied bassoon and recorder at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and baroque bassoon at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. He then became musical director for touring theatre company The Medieval Players and went on to play with a number
of renaissance music ensembles and with many of London's period instrument orchestras including The Academy of Ancient Music, the English Concert, The London Classical Players and The English Baroque Soloists. He has also played for Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus in Vienna. In 1984 He formed The Carnival Band playing a mixture of early, traditional and world music and with them has toured as far afield as Sudan, the Gulf States and Japan. A keen music educator working with children and adults of all ages, he is professor of baroque and classical bassoon at the Royal Academy of Music and a visiting lecturer at Birmingham Conservatoire. He is currently engaged on a major research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for which The Carnival Band will record the 100 most popular ballads of the 17th century.
Hannah Talbot Cooper
Subjects Taught
Flute / Saxophone / Flute Choir
Daniel Buxton
Subjects Taught
Saxophone / Clarinet
Qualifications
BMus (Hons), DipABRSM
Dan studied saxophone performance, clarinet and flute doubling with second study jazz at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and is now an established performer, educator, composer and arranger.
Dan has played with many fantastic bands, groups and ensembles including three years as the baritone sax and bass clarinet player with the multi award winning Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra. He has been a member of both the National Youth Music Theatre Company (NYMT) and the British Youth Music Company (BYMT) and plays assorted saxophones and clarinets in a wide variety of small combos, chamber groups, concert bands and function bands across the UK.
He is in demand as a baritone sax player with many renowned big bands, playing with the likes of the Louis Dowdeswell Big Band, Steve King Big Band, Fat Chops Big Band, Guildhall Jazz Orchestra, Duke Street Big Band and the London Jazz Orchestra.
As an accomplished musical theatre performer, Dan has played with pit bands in shows such as Tryptych, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, West Side Story, Bugsy Malone, Les Miserables, Kipps, Honk!, Into the Woods, and world premieres of new musicals Fagin and The Great Gatsby.
He has played professionally with top singers including Clare Teal, Elaine Delmar, Claire Martin, Matt Ford, Ashton Jones, Marc Almond and Marlene VerPlanck and with leading musicians including Louis Dowdeswell, Matt Harris, James Morrison, Andy Panayi, Bobby Shew, Russell Bennett, Neil Bullock, Callum Au, Nikki Iles and Alan Barnes. He has also backed west end stars including Marti Webb, Ria Jones, Gary Wilmot and Chris Howard.
Dan is a regular performer with his own saxophone quartet and has an extensive teaching portfolio in Northampton, across Leicestershire and here at the Elgar School of Music.
Nicky Fox
Subjects Taught
Flute / Saxophone / Clarinet / Piano
Qualifications
GMus
Nicky studied flute and piano at Colchester Institute to degree level. Nicky obtained her PGCE with Solihull Education Authority.
Nicky has lived and taught in Worcestershire for over 25 years. She teaches in 10 schools around Worcestershire and when she is not teaching she can be found in the ‘pit’ of various amateur dramatic societies s such as WODS & WODYS. Nicky plays Tenor Sax with the Hey Yahs band who perform regularly around Hereford.
In her spare time Nicky enjoys walking her four dogs and taking them on holiday in the Motorhome.