Meet the players
Our core players are:
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 (Baroque violin, baroque viola and viola d'amore )
Catherine Finnis (Baroque cello and viola da gamba)
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Actors Clive Mendus and Peter Luke Kenny appear with MDD in the programme 'All the World’s a Stage'
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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. Last year, he began
a project with the guitarist Ian Gammie to record the classical
repertoire for voice and guitar. The first CD is of the songs of the
Irishman Thomas Moore. Michael 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.
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.
Julia Black (baroque violin, baroque viola and viola d'amore)
Julia Black studied baroque violin at the Royal College of Music and Koninklijke Conservatorium in The Hague, with Catherine Mackintosh and Lucy van Dael respectively. She has performed and made recordings with a variety of ensembles here and in Europe including the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Fiori Musicali Bremen, and the Academy of Ancient Music.
Catherine Finnis (baroque cello and viola da gamba)
Catherine
Finnis studied the 'cello in Adelaide, South Australia with the
English cellist James Whitehead, and in London at the Royal College
of Music with Harvey Phillips. She has had an interesting career,
combining many facets of music-making; teaching and performing,
recording and writing. She is a core member of Musica Donum Dei,
Philip Pickett's New London Consort and Musicians of the Globe,
playing viols and baroque cello, Ross Pople's London Festival
Orchestra, as well as Florilegium, Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment, and Midsummer Opera. She recently graduated with a
first-class degree in Fine Art from Coventry University, while
continuing a fully committed life in music. A Vivaldi concerto she
played at the QEH in 2002 was described in The Independent as
being "played with alluring virtuosity by Catherine Finnis".
Clive Mendus works as an actor, teacher and director. He is a long time collaborator with Théâtre du Complicité, performing in The Visit, Help, I’m Alive, The Street of Crocodiles, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Light, Vanishing Points and Measure for Measure. Other theatre includes working in rep., from Theatre Clwyd in Wales to the Lyceum in Edinburgh, the Royal Exchange in Manchester and the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in London. He has toured extensively with several companies, notably Shared Experience, Complicité and The Medieval Players, taking in the delights of Moscow, Sydney, Sao Paulo, New York, Oban, Acharacle, Gateshead and Wolverhampton amongst others.
He has directed for Ullaloom, Catapult, Third Party, Momentary Fusion, and Hoi-Polloi and assisted at Theatre Clwyd on Full Moon and The Rose Tattoo. Recently he directed the chorus for the Royal Shakespeare Co.’s Comedy of Errors.
Clive has taught at several drama schools as well as the Royal College of Art and The Royal College of Music, and abroad at the Actors’ Center, New York and the Habimah National Theatre, Tel Aviv.
Peter
Luke 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, last year -
visit www.passamezzo.co.uk
This page last updated 21 December 2007