Department of Woodwind Studies

The Team

Meyrick Alexander

Head of Woodwind Studies
Meyrick Alexander 

Meyrick Alexander has held the position of Principal Bassoon since 1980 in the Philharmonia Orchestra before which he was a member of several leading orchestras including the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia. He is also Principal Bassoon of the London Chamber Orchestra and has played period instruments with John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and is a regular guest principal with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

He has performed extensively as a chamber musician and as a guest with nearly every British symphony and chamber orchestra, and is also a regular soloist at the annual International Double Reed Conference in the USA, Australia and the UK. In contemporary music, he is the dedicatee of a number of solo works and has performed with the London Sinfonietta. He has been a member of staff at three conservatoires (the Guildhall, Birmingham Conservatoire and the RNCM) and regularly gives masterclasses and recitals at all the other major colleges in Britain and several in Europe, Australia, USA and the Far East. He has also served on the jury on two major international competitions.

Flute

  • Roger Armstrong BSc (Hons) DSCM LMusA
  • Jonathan Burgess BA (Hons) ARCM
  • Sarah Newbold BA (Hons) ARCM LRAM Dip NCOS
  • Eva Stewart

Piccolo

  • Nicola Dowton BMus (Hons) RNCM PPRNCM
  • Elizabeth May GRSM ARCM

Oboe

  • David Cowley ARCM
  • Murray Johnson GRSM
  • Sarah-Jayne Porsmorguer GMus (Hons) RNCM PPRNCM

Cor Anglais

  • Sarah-Jayne Porsmorguer GMus (Hons) RNCM PPRNCM

Clarinet

  • Leslie Craven ARCM
  • Alison Lambert BMus (Hons) PPRNCM DKA
  • Robert Plane BA (Hons) MMus (London) DipRAM LRAM ARAM

Eb Clarinet

  • John Cooper GRNCM PPRNCM

Bass Clarinet

  • Peter Fielding ARMCM

Bassoon

  • Meyrick Alexander ARCM
  • Stephen Marsden ARCM

Contra Bassoon

  • Christopher Vale ARCM

Saxophone

  • John Cooper GRNCM PPRNCM
  • Lara James MusM GMus (Hons) (RNCM) PPRNCM
  • Gerard McChrystal GMus (Hons) (RNCM) PPRNCM GSM MA

Masterclasses and Visiting Artists

  • John Anderson (Oboe)
  • Ian Clarke (Flute)
  • Sir James Galway (Flute)
  • Edwin Roxburgh (Oboe)
  • Martin Fröst (Clarinet)
  • Otis Murphy (Saxophone)
  • Martin Crook (Clarinet)
  • Lyn Klock (Saxophone)
  • Tim Reynish (Wind Orchestra and Ensemble)