Diane Terry (baroque violin, baroque viola and viola d'amore)
Wendy Hancock (baroque flute and recorders; artistic director)
Michael Sanderson (baritone voice and baroque violin)
Michael Overbury (harpsichord and organ)

Julia Black (early violin, viola, viola d'amore)
Gareth Deats (baroque cello)

Actor Peter Kenny appears with MDD in the programme 'All the World’s a Stage'

Diane Terry (baroque violin, baroque viola and viola d'amore; orchestral manager)

A music graduate of Nottingham University, Diane Terry studied the baroque violin with Simon Standage at the Royal Academy of Music. She records and plays regularly with leading period instrumental ensembles including Collegium Musicum 90, the St James Baroque Players, the Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. She is principal violinist of the Baker Collection, Midland Baroque and Hertfordshire Classical Orchestra. She is Visiting Lecturer in baroque violin and viola studies at Birmingham Conservatoire.

Wendy Hancock (baroque flute, recorders; artistic director)

Wendy Hancock is a music graduate of Exeter University, who gained an M.A. in the Interpretation and Editing of Renaissance and Baroque Music at Nottingham University, and continued her research into 17th-century English music for an M.Phil. For ten years she was editor of Chelys, the journal of the Viola da Gamba Society. In Nottingham she founded the Holme Pierrepont Opera Trust for the performance of Baroque opera on period instruments. She now performs widely, writes and edits, and also teaches part-time for Nottingham University, and on the International Recorder Summer School at Mechelen. She has recently recorded two CDs of Elizabethan music for The Gift of Music label (playing Renaissance flute, recorder and treble viol), and two with Musica Donum Dei (playing recorder, tenor viol and Baroque flute): Ring a Ring A Roses, and For the Love of Shakespeare. She also plays with the trio Galliarda. Wendy plays recorders by Anthony Arnold

Michael Sanderson (baritone voice and baroque violin)

Michael Sanderson graduated in music from Nottingham University in 1986. After three years singing as a lay-clerk at St. George’s Chapel Windsor, he sang as a soloist with the baroque opera company Opera Restor’d. He performed with the company at the Edinburgh, Leeds and Utrecht Early Music Festivals, and recorded the CD of Lampe’s opera Pyramus and Thisbe. Michael now performs with several chamber groups specialising in the early music repertoire, which include Musica Donum Dei and Café Mozart. Michael has recorded as a soloist on CD with both these groups, and also with the baroque guitarist Ian Gammie. He combines his singing career with the part-time post of Head of Student Music at Brunel University. His series of song recitals there have included German Lieder as well as programmes of French, American and English song. This year sees the 25th anniversary of the formation of his folk-rock ceilidh band ‘The Dusty Bees’, whose performances now number over 600.

Michael Overbury (harpsichord and organ)

Michael Overbury won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he read music. Since graduating he has been Assistant Organist at New College, Oxford, and Deputy Organist and Choirmaster at the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Albans. After winning first prize in the 1982 Manchester International Organ Competition he has appeared twice as soloist at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and has continued to play with numerous choirs and orchestras, including Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of St John's, Smith Square and Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, and has featured on several recordings including three solo discs. He is Director of Music at Worksop Priory, Nottinghamshire, and the Director of Music of the Nottingham Boys Choir. He also plays harpsichord with the chamber trio Continuum.

Julia Black (early violin, viola, viola d'amore) was born in Amersham and studied violin/baroque violin at the Royal College of Music with Maria Lidka, Kenneth Piper, John Ludlow and Catherine Mackintosh. Subsequently she moved to the Koninklijke Conservatorium in The Hague to continue her historical performance practice studies on early strings with Lucy van Dael, Sigiswald Kuijken and others. She has performed, broadcast and made recordings with a variety of ensembles here and all over Europe including the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Collegium Musicum 90, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Early Opera Company, The Hanover Band, La Nuova Musica, Florilegium, Irish Baroque Orchestra and Fiori Musicali Bremen. She is a principal player for MDD, Ensemble Serse and other small chamber music ensembles, and regularly performs as soloist on violin, viola and viola d’amore. Now living in Biggleswade, she combines performing with family life, teaching and community music work and is known locally as a performer on modern violin/viola, piano and double bass. She gives masterclasses and lecture recitals on various subjects ranging from historically-informed performance practice to the electric violin - her latest project is a show illustrating the curious history of stringed instruments and the performers thereof. In her spare time she can be found on the allotment or making wine...

Gareth Deats is principal cello for La Serenissima, The Galeazzi Ensemble and Charivari Agreable, and has performed as principal with London Handel Orchestra, The New London Consort, Classical Opera Company, The Avison Ensemble, and many other orchestras and chamber ensembles. He has recorded over 20 CDs as principal cellist or soloist, including concertos and chamber music. These have garnered much critical acclaim including winning a Gramophone award in 2010 with La Serenissima (The French Connection, on Avie Records). He obtained a first-class honours degree in music from University of Southampton, where he was also awarded the Peter Evans prize for outstanding performance. He studied cello with Paul Cox and then completed a post-graduate course at the Guildhall School of Music, where he studied baroque cello with Anthony Pleeth.

Peter Kenny has worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Coventry Belgrade, New Triad, New Palace Theatre Co. Orange Tree, Playboard Puppets and Border Crossings. He has toured for the British Council to Shakespeare festivals in Jordan, Syria and Zimbabwe. His most recent tour for the BC was A&BC’s celebrated production of The Tempest, to the Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, the Gdansk Festival in Poland, Hong Kong, Trinidad and Milton Keynes! He was a member of the BBC Radio Drama Co. ‘94-’95. Recent TV includes Sir Charles Mordaunt in Scandalous Women for the BBC, At The White Bear, Peter Twombly in Bastardz! by Ned Cox, and First Elder and Partisan in the British premiere of The Card Index by Tadeusz Rosewicz. Recent theatre includes Cromwell in Henry VIII as part of the RSC’s Complete Works season. He is a founder member of the early music group Passamezzo with whom he recorded a CD, Gallimaufry, in 2006 - visit www.passamezzo.co.uk