About us

The Oxford Spezzati was founded in 2002 by Nicholas Mumby and Henry Capper-Allen and is a chamber ensemble specialising in Baroque music. Its membership comprises a number of very fine young musicians, many of whom are beginning their professional musical careers.

The group has performed in many venues in both Oxford and London, as well as singing evensong in Westminster Abbey, Worcester Cathedral and Exeter College, Oxford. Concert repertoire has focused on the Baroque and early Classical periods, and highlights include performances of Mozart’s Exultate, jubilate, Monteverdi’s Beatus vir, Vivaldi’s Gloria and J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The Spezzati has also produced a recording of Bach’s Mass in B minor from a memorable live performance in Merton College Chapel.

Nicholas Mumby

Nicholas Mumby is the Principal Conductor and Director of Music for the Oxford Spezzati Soloists & Orchestra. He graduated with a degree in Classics in 2003 from Exeter College, Oxford, where he was also an Academical Clerk. He recently qualified as a lawyer and currently works as an associate solicitor in Slaughter and May’s Commercial Real Estate Department.

Under his direction the Spezzati has grown in reputation, both in Oxford and abroad. This summer the Spezzati performed in the Lausanne Summer Music Festival during a six-day tour to the Swiss Riviera. They then opened the Sunningdale Concert Series at Trinity Church in Sunningdale at the beginning of September. Recent performances have focused on Baroque music, in particular that of Johann Sebastian Bach, including the Mass in B minor, St Matthew Passion, Christmas Oratorio and Magnificat. Other performances have included English music – by Finzi, Vaughan Williams and Warlock – and an acclaimed performance of Strauss’ Metamorphosen.

He has studied conducting and organ under Dr Christopher Tinker, attended conducting classes with Dr Marios Papadopoulos, studied piano under Jonathan Darnborough and attended classes with Norma Fisher. In 2003 he was appointed as the first Conducting Apprentice at the Berkshire (USA) Choral Festival, held at Canterbury Cathedral.

Nicholas was the Principal Conductor of the Oxford Millennium Orchestra from 2000 to 2005, conducting numerous concerts, and taking the orchestra from relative obscurity to its current respected position. During his tenure with OMO he conducted most of the major symphonic repertoire, and worked with many soloists including Jonathan Darnborough, Stuart Baran and Charlie Wilson. He also organised four highly successful summer concert tours to France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Germany. He currently holds the position of Conductor Emeritus.

He has also held conducting positions with the Cantores Exonienses, the Keble College Orchestra, the Oxford Bach Choir and the Oxford Millennium Opera Company. He has conducted two fully staged operas, Purcell’s Dido and Æneas in 2000 and Mozart’s Così fan tutte in 2005. He has had an active involvement in sacred choral music, singing with all of the major Oxford choirs, and holding positions as Master of the Music at Pusey House, Assistant Director of Music at St Michael at the Northgate in Oxford and organ scholar at St Mary’s, Battersea. He has recently joined the Holst Singers under conductor Stephen Layton.

Jonathan Bridcut

Jonathan Bridcut began his musical career as a Quirister at Winchester College, where he was a treble from 1993 to 1998. During his following five years at Radley College, Jonathan played an active role in the music department, gaining grade eight piano with distinction and leading the school orchestra.

When he moved on to Oxford University, as a choral scholar at Exeter College, he developed his interest in composition. Supported by his college choir, his first set of canticles for evensong was premiered in May 2004. A year later, his second set was performed in St Paul’s Cathedral. After the horrific events of 7 July 2005 in London, Jonathan wrote a commemorative setting of Psalm 10, entitled Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?, which has since been sung in Oxford, London and Rome, by Schola Cantorum of Oxford and the Bosnian National Youth Choir. This anthem has now been recorded by the Exeter College choir, and is available on its most recent CD.

This November also sees the premiere of Jonathan’s latest commission, a setting for unaccompanied 8-part choir of John Donne’s A Hymn to God the Father, in Tewkesbury Abbey. Further performances of his works will be given by the Oxford Spezzati and Commotio in early 2008.

After graduating from Oxford in 2006 with a BA degree in Modern History, Jonathan is now in the process of completing his law conversion course, and will join Allen & Overy next September.

Alexander Campkin

Alexander Campkin started a Masters in Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 2006. In 2005 he finished his BA in Music at the University of Oxford, where he was Choral Scholar at St Catherine’s College, Assistant Organ Scholar at Trinity College, and conductor of the Oxford Chamber Choir and Arcadian Singers of Oxford University.

After university he took a gap year in which he founded the Minimalist Ensemble for performance of contemporary music, who performed in the Sheldonian Theatre and produced a CD. In June 2006 Alexander was interviewed live on Oxide 87.9FM in a one-hour composer portrait. He has studied composition under Robert Saxton and Stephen Montague, and has received tuition from Simon Bainbridge and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. His composition Scan achieved recognition in the BBC Proms Young Composers Competition, with extracts played on BBC Radio 3.

In 2007 Alexander will be composing pieces for the BBC Singers, Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs, an animation project in collaboration with animators at Bristol University, and a commission from the Royal Academy String Orchestra. Performance venues for his compositions include Westminster Abbey, The London Oratory, the Oxford University Church, Trafalgar Square, The Queen’s College, the Holywell Music Room and The Royal Academy of Music.

Claire Eadington

Claire Eadington is an active soloist and consort singer based in Oxford, known for her enthusiasm not only for her repertorial stamping ground of early polyphony, but also more generally towards thoughtful music-making of all varieties. Solo work thus far includes Bach’s St John Passion with David Crown and Oxford Baroque Soloists in Christ Church Cathedral, and the evangelist quartet in Pärt’s Passio with John Potter and Stephen Varcoe in York Minster with the Szczepek Ensemble.

Prior to graduating in 2006 from St Hugh’s College, Oxford, with an honours degree in Music, Claire was a regular singer in many groups, including Schola Cantorum of Oxford, with whom she toured extensively in Central and South America, and the chapel choir of Pusey House. Since then she has recorded with Stephen Rice’s Brabant Ensemble for Hyperion, and is now a Lay Clerk of The Queen’s College.

When she isn’t singing, Claire can be found manning the desks of Oxford University’s Music and Philosophy faculty libraries, artistically administrating eight-voice a cappella outfit Blackbird, preparing publications for the Oxford Lieder Festival, and in summer working as a vocal tutor for both the Hallé Youth Choir, Manchester, and Morland Choristers’ Camp.

Rhydian Griffiths

Rhydian Griffiths, a native of Swansea, South Wales, read music at Jesus College, Oxford, graduating with honours in 2005. As a soloist he has enjoyed success in many competitions, including first prizes at the Urdd National Eisteddfod and the National Eisteddfod of Wales on numerous occasions. Furthermore, he was also a finalist in the Rotary International Young Musician Competition 2000 and also the Texaco Young Musician of Wales 2001. Rhydian is one of only two people ever to have given a performance of Alun Hoddinott’s trumpet concerto, The Shining Pyramid, doing so with the Cardiff Bay Symphony Orchestra in 2001. In 2002, he was invited to give a performance of the Arutiunian trumpet concerto in a concert masterclass with Roger Webster at the annual International Trumpet Guild conference.

At national level, Rhydian has played for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and has also held the principal seat with the National Youth Brass Band, Symphony Orchestra, Wind Orchestra and Jazz Orchestra of Wales. During his time at Oxford, he held the position of Manager of the Oxford University Orchestra and Jazz Orchestra as well as acting as a Director of the Turl Street Arts Festival. Last year he gave the world premiere of British composer Tim Benjamin’s work The Four Dragons: A Chinese Tale for solo trumpet, brass ensemble and percussion. Rhydian also recently performed the Neruda trumpet concerto with the Spezzati. In April 2007 he will be touring India as lead trumpet with the Oxford University Big Band. He is also a keen skier.

Julia Hailstone

Julia Hailstone studied Psychology and Physiology at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, graduating in 2003, and is currently a researcher at the Institute of Neurology, University College London, looking at the neuropsychology of dementia.

Julia played the violin and viola from a young age, learning both with John Humphries and Julia Clare. For the past three years she studied chamber music at the London College of Music with Susanne Stanzeleit, and currently studies the violin with the Bulgarian soloist Devorina Gamalova.

Rachael Johnson

Rachael Johnson was born in Boston, USA. She began her musical training as a chorister in the Hildegard Choir, Oxford. After graduating with a degree in Mathematics from the University of Leeds she studied for a Masters in Music at the University of York, specialising in Baroque performance practice, where she began singing professionally, including for York Minster.

She currently works as a freelance singer and enjoys a variety of work which takes her as far afield as China, Libya, Mexico and Russia. She sings regularly for Polyphony, the Academy of Ancient Music, Charivari Agréable and the BBC Daily Service Singers. Rachael also works as a deputy for other choirs including the BBC Singers, the Tower of London Choir, St Bride’s, Fleet Street and Royal Hospital Chelsea and organises her own octet, Blackbird.

Rachael works as a soloist for a number of choirs and choral societies and has given recitals ranging from Early Music with period instruments to commissioned new works with piano trio. Recent performances include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Handel’s Dixit Dominus with Charivari Agréable, J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Hull Bach Choir and Jonathan Bridcut’s Sonnet for Soprano and Orchestra and J.S. Bach’s Magnificat with Oxford Spezzati. She has also recorded theme music for productions aired on Channel 4, the Discovery Channel and the BBC. Opera experience includes Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Venus in Arne’s The Judgement of Paris performed in the Beverley Early Music Festival.

Rachael is currently studying with Judith Sheridan and lives in Sunningdale with her husband, Steve.

Gaelyn Pilmoor

Gaelyn Pilmoor enjoyed a successful Purcell Room recital at the age of 17, and went on to graduate from the Royal Northern College of Music, where she studied the flute with Peter Lloyd and the baroque flute with Lisa Besznosiuk. While in Manchester she was also involved in education projects with the Hallé orchestra and the Royal School for the Deaf.

Gaelyn is currently the Junior Dean of St Cross College, Oxford, and a tutor in Music History at a number of Oxford colleges, alongside her doctoral study on Weimar-period opera.

Robin Whitehouse

Robin Whitehouse completed a Maths degree in 2003 at St Peter’s College, Oxford. Before coming to Oxford he spent a year studying horn and singing at the Royal College of Music with Simon Rayner and Kenneth Woolham. Oxford credits include Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, the Duke of Dunstable in Patience and since then all the tenor roles in the Mozart–Da Ponte operas as well as Evangelist in Bach’s St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio.

Robin was Principal Horn with all the major University orchestras and recently performed Strauss’ second horn concerto with the Oxford Millennium Orchestra.

Jonathan Wikeley

Although Jonathan Wikeley was photographed playing the piano aged just one, he only started having lessons aged nine, when his hands were large enough to stretch an octave. Having studied both piano and violin during his schooldays at Liverpool College, from 1997 he read music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he also took harpsichord lessons with Virginia Pleasants.

Jonathan spent a year as a choral scholar at Truro Cathedral, before coming up to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied under Reinhard Strohm, although he spent most of his time singing in and directing many choirs. It was during this time that he rather misguidedly agreed to play the organ for a friend’s wedding, reignited a love for the instrument, and became director of music at St Peter’s Church, Wolvercote.

In 2004 Jonathan moved to London, where he became organ scholar and then director of music at St Mary’s Church, Battersea. He currently studies under Anne Marsden Thomas and recently took his ARCO, winning all the major prizes. As well as conducting several vocal ensembles, he is also editor of Early Music Today and a freelance journalist, reviewing concerts and festivals from the Faroe Islands and Norway to Tuscany and Toulouse, and interviewing artists including Paul Hillier, John Holloway, John Rutter and Sting. In his spare time Jonathan likes going for long walks and is an enthusiastic – though rather bad – jazz pianist.