Benoit Laurent (oboe) studied the recorder with F. De Roos, the baroque oboe with
Paul Dombrecht and Ann Vanlancker, and the modern oboe with Sylvain Cremers. He
then studied in Wurzburg (Germany) with Michael Niesemann. In 2008 he won second
prize at the prestigious competition Musica Antiqua in Bruges, in the category soloist.
He is now also assistant of Marcel Ponseele at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles.
Benoit gives concerts as an orchestral musician, soloist or chamber musician with renowned ensembles such as Concerto Koln, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, B’Rock, Il Gardellino, les Muffatti, les Agremens to mention but a few.
Katherine Spencer (clarinet) made her concerto debut at the age of fourteen at the Royal Festival Hall and has since performed there as concerto soloist a further three times. She has also appeared as soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, The Academy of St Martin in the Fields Orchestra at the Barbican Centre and at the Birmingham Symphony Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, made many live Radio 3 solo broadcasts, and performes regularly on Classic FM and European radio stations. She has recorded the Brahms Sonata and Beethoven Trio for the Oxford Classic label with Sam Haywood and Martin Storey and many of her discs with the Galliard Ensemble, of which she is a founder member are highly acclaimed in the press and Gramophone magazine. Her prizes include 1997 Yamaha European Foundation award winner, prize winner in Concertina Praga competition which lead to tours of Austria, the former Yugoslavia and the Czech Republic and the Munster "Star Award". As a chamber musician Katherine has performed Mozart with the remaining members of the Amadeus Quartet in the presence of HRH the Emperor of Japan. She continues to perform internationally with her ensembles Ragnaroks and the Galliards in Festivals such as the BBC Proms and the Barbican’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
Anneke Scott (horn) is “rapidly emerging as one of the outstanding younger exponents of the natural horn”. Since her graduation from The Royal Academy of Music in 2000 she has been in demand with ensembles in the UK and continental Europe. She is principal horn of Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique and The English Baroque Soloists, Harry Christopher’s The Orchestra of the Sixteen and The Avison Ensemble and has frequently worked as principal horn with The Australian Chamber Orchestra, The English Concert, Freiburg Baroque and The Mahler Chamber Orchestra. For many years she has had a keen interest in chamber music which led to her becoming a founder member of The Etesian Ensemble. Through this ensemble she met the fortepianist Kathryn Cok with whom she formed a duo specialising in classical and romantic repertoire for horn and fortepiano. Kathryn and Anneke were selected as two of Making Music’s Concert Promoters Network Artists for 2008/2009 and toured Holland in 2009 as part of the Organisatie Oudemuziek Netwerk. In 2007 Anneke was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, an honour awarded to past students of the Academy who have distinguished themselves in the music profession and made a significant contribution to their field.
Wouter Verschuren (bassoon) graduated from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He
studied baroque and classical bassoon with Donna Agrell. Wouter is sought after in
the Netherlands and abroad as a bassoonist, and is equally at home with repertoire
ranging from the Renaissance to the Romantic. He is principal bassoonist of The Amsterdam
Baroque Orchestra conducted by Ton Koopman, and regularly plays with other renowned
period orchestras. In addition, he regularly appears as a soloist, and plays in numerous
international chamber music ensembles such as Caecilia-
Kathryn Cok (fortepiano) pursues a varied career as a harpsichordist, fortepianist
and academic on both sides of the Atlantic. She is well sought after both as a soloist
as well as a continuo player. Born in the city of New York, USA, Kathryn now lives
in The Hague, Holland where she completed a Masters degree at the Royal Conservatory
as a student of Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot on the harpsichord, and Bart van Oort
on the fortepiano.
Kathryn recently won first prize in the first solo competition
for baroque instruments in Brunnenthal, Austria. She works regularly as a soloist
and continuo player with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, and other important early
music ensembles in Europe and performs regularly as a soloist in many of the world’s
most renowned Early Music Festivals such as Oude Muziek, Utrecht, Brunnenthaler Concert
Zomer, Bodensee Festival, and important keyboard collections in the UK such as the
Cobbe Collection, Finchcock’s, Fenton House and the Gemeente Museum, Holland. She
is co-
The Musicians