OUR MUSICIANS

Anhad straddles the worlds of musicology and performance. Interested in historical instruments from a young age, he graduated from the RCMJD with the Freda Dinn Memorial Prize in Early Music, where he studied piano with Neil Roxburgh and harpsichord with Jane Chapman. He continued his formation with James Johnstone, while holding both an undergraduate academic scholarship at Lady Margaret Hall and the repetiteur scholarship with New Chamber Opera. Anhad has since appeared with some of the country’s foremost groups, including the Academy of Ancient Music, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Oxford Bach Soloists, for whom he serves as co-principal keyboardist, and performed in the some of the country’s most prestigious venues, such as the Wigmore Hall, The Sage in Gateshead, and Handel House, London. He looks forward to making his solo debut at St Martin in the Fields in July 2026. 

Anhad’s academic work centres on early nineteenth-century German musical and literary culture. Having obtained a first-class Bachelor’s degree in Music and Master’s degree with Distinction in Musicology from Oxford, Anhad completed his doctorate, fully funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Clarendon Fund, on Orientalism and the German Lied between 1814 and 1840 at Merton College. He spent three months as a Research Fellow at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, and a year as Theodor Heuss Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg, which was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Anhad’s work on German song can be read in the Heine Jahrbuch (2021) and Publications of the English Goethe Society (2023). He looks forward to publishing for the first time in German in Mendelssohn-Studien (2025).

Praised by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for her “innate musicianship, violinistic prowess, charm and a beguiling beauty of tone”, British violinist Davina Clarke is internationally renowned in baroque, classical and romantic repertoire. With a passion for historically informed performance, she performs around the globe with the world’s most highly regarded period ensembles including The English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, The Academy of Ancient Music, Dunedin Consort, Arcangelo, The Sixteen and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. 

Davina has performed globally with celebrated artists such as Sir Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Masaaki Suzuki, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Rachel Podger, Isabelle Faust, Nicola Benedetti and Joyce Didinato. She frequents the platforms at the world’s greatest concert halls including Carnegie Hall and The Lincoln Center (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Philharmonie (Paris), La Scala (Italy), Palau de la Musica (Barcelona), Philharmonie (Berlin), The Royal Opera House, Wigmore Hall and Royal Albert Hall in London. 

Davina plays on both a 1659 Francesco Ruggieri violin and also a 1695 Giovanni Battista Rogeri violin. She is very grateful to Sebastian Lyon, The VEC Acorn Trust, Helen and John Skinner and The Stradivari Trust for their generous support.

 Born in Taipei, flautist Yu-Wei Hu discovered her passion for early music while studying at the National Taiwan Normal University, and it later brought her to the Royal College of Music in London. Supported by a Taiwanese Government Scholarship, Yu-Wei studied historical flute with Lisa Beznosiuk and Rachel Brown as well as modern flute with Susan Thomas and Daniel Pailthorpe at the RCM, where she was awarded the MMus in Performance with Distinction and an Artist Diploma degree. 

As both recitalist and orchestral musician, Yu-Wei has performed modern and period flutes throughout the UK and Europe, including concerts at Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Palace of Versailles and MuTh – Konzertsaal der Wiener Sängerknaben. Festival appearances include BBC Proms, London Handel Festival, London Festival of Baroque Music, Radio France Festival in Montpellier, Bachwoche Festival in Vienna, and Carinthischer Sommer Festival in Austria. Her performances have been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, Radio France and Austrian Radio Ö1.  As part of Flauguissimo, the ensemble she co-founded with guitarist/theorbo-player Johan Löfving , Yu-Wei has recorded several albums released under Resonus Classics to great critical acclaim. Currently the Principal Flute of Oxford Bach Soloists and Opera Warberg, Yu-Wei has also performed and recorded as part of many renowned period chamber ensembles and orchestras, including Arcangelo, the Academy of Ancient Music, Florilegium, Gabrieli Consort & Players, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. 

In 2021 Yu-Wei was appointed Modern and Historical Flute Professor at London Performing Academy of Music. Additionally, as a regular historical flute teacher at Wermland Early Music Festival in Sweden, she is committed to teaching and inspiring the next generation of musicians. 

Dónal McCann is an acclaimed conductor, organist and composer. Born in Belfast, his musical training began as a chorister at St Peter’s Cathedral, before taking up piano and organ tuition in Dublin. He read music and was an organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, where he achieved a double first and accompanied the world famous choir under Sir Stephen Cleobury and Daniel Hyde.

As Head of Chapel Music at Winchester College, he directs the renowned chapel choir, including the Quiristers: the boy choristers who sing at the College. He is involved in all aspects of musical life at Winchester College, and leads the college’s choral partnerships programme.

Dónal is in demand as an organ recitalist, giving recitals in the UK and abroad, most recently in Westminster Abbey and opening the restored organ of the church of St Lawrence in Malta. He achieved the Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists aged 17.  He is co-principal keyboardist of the Oxford Bach Soloists, one of the UK’s leading early music groups, and his debut solo album of organ works by Bach and Walther was met with critical acclaim. He is also an award-winning composer; his music recently being performed by the BBC Singers on BBC Radio 3.

Working as a musician with historically informed instruments has led Rosie to playing bass violin, violone in G and 16-foot (double) bass for a variety of concerts and ensembles.  As a soloist, she has performed live on Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ with Sean Rafferty where she played two of Dragonetti’s 12 waltzs and subsequently performed all 12 in a recital for JAM on the Marsh Festival in 2024. She will play the same programme in October ’24 at the Painted Church, Cambridge, and performed the waltzes at the Swedish Church in 2023.  

 Rosie was principal bass for Monteverdi’s Choir and Orchestras English Baroque Soloists in December 2024 under Christophe Rousset, and is touring with the orchestras Révolutionnaire et Romantique and English Baroque Soloists throughout 2025, both as a principal and tutti player.  She is currently a principal continuo player (on violone in G and double bass) for the Oxford Bach Soloists; an ensemble which focuses on J.S. Bach and his contemporaries. The group released their first CD in 2024 and has received 5* reviews for their ‘virile, collegiate approach to Bach’.

As a regular performer with Florilegium, she has recorded Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos live on BBC Radio 3 at the York Early Music Festival, performed at Wigmore Hall and recorded Haydn’s symphonies, Le Matin, Le Midi and Le Soir as soloist. In 2022 and 2024, Rosie recorded flute concertos with Ashley Solomon and the ensemble on original instruments with Channel Classics.

Frances read Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, before taking up a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music where she specialised in baroque oboe. Since that time she has enjoyed performing with many different groups in venues and festivals across the UK, Europe, East Asia and the USA. Frances has been a member of OBS since its inception, and is also currently a member of Dunedin Consort and Ensemble Zimmermann (Denmark).  

Frances lives in Cholsey with her family; in 2022 she obtained her Licentiate in acupuncture which she sees in many ways as an ideal complement to her performing work.