Former Pupils

Some Well-Known Former Pupils

Eleanor Dennis

Eleanor Dennis

Soprano Eleanor Dennis, who studied at NESMS with Raimund Herincx, is a graduate of the RCM International Opera School. Since 2012 she has performed regularly with the English National Opera and Scottish Opera and has sung Ginevra Ariodante for the Salzburger Landestheater as well as Helena in staged performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Aldeburgh Festival.

Highlights on the concert platform include performances at Three Choirs Festival, and with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, and Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.

Donald Gillan

Donald Gillan

Donald Gillan studied cello at NESMS with Eileen Croxford and won scholarships to the Royal College of Music and the Royal Northern College.  He has been a guest player and soloist with many orchestras and has performed at the Edinburgh Festival to great acclaim.  He also plays in duos and quartets and his musical life is an extremly varied one.

Ian Wilson

Ian Wilson

Ian Wilson was a woodwind student at NESMS with Lawrence Gill, and is now our Visiting Professor of Clarinet and Recorder.  From NESMS he went on to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he won the Principal’s Prize and the Woodwind Prize twice, once on clarinet and once on recorder.  Now a Professor of Early Music at Guildhall and of Avant-garde Recorder Music at Trinity, Ian teaches at Eton College and plays with the Flautadors.


Joseph Long

Joseph Long

Joseph Long was a piano pupil of David Parkhouse and then latterly of John Blakely at NESMS. He left Aberdeen to study at Cambridge, but has now returned to his native city, and has completed the circle by himself becoming a tutor at the school where he was taught.  Joseph is much in demand as a concert pianist and spends much of his time teaching both at NESMS and at Aberdeen University.

 

 

Oliver Searle

Oliver Searle

Born in North Berwick, former NESMS piano pupil Oliver Searle studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes and Gordon McPherson at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (at that time RSAMD) where he now holds a lecturing post.

Oliver is frequently involved in the creation of music for theatre, and now has his own contemporary music group, SYMPOSiA, which he co-founded in 2002. He has written works for various orchestras and ensembles including the Britten-Pears Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Sally Garden

Sally Garden

Former pupil, mezzo-soprano and musicologist Sally Garden, hails from an Angus farming family. A member of the Walter Scott Minstrelsy Project (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) and former Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Scandinavian Studies (University of Aberdeen), her recital and research career encompasses international collaborative work, festival appearances, concert promotion, publishing, editing, new media work, and composition.

A versatile performer and scholar, Sally, earlier in her career was also Historical Musician in Residence at the Wighton Heritage Centre, Dundee, where she directed a 3-year programme of events to unfold one of Scotland's finest music archives. In more recent work, she has pioneered the first ever live music event at the National Library of Scotland, inspired an award-winning Adult Education course on the music of Scotland, and appeared in recital at Troldhaugen, home of Edvard Grieg.

Lisa Milne

Lisa Milne

Lisa Milne came as a 14 year old to NESMS, where she worked on singing technique with Jean Webster and on interpretation with Neil Mackie.  She went on to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now RCS) with Pat McMahon.

Today Lisa has had leading roles for English National Opera, Metropolitan Opera, New York and Scottish Opera, and has toured to Japan with Sir Simon Rattle.  She has gained numerous awards and now teaches privately at NESMS.

NESMS
 
"
Email Us Now
 

or call us on
 
  +44 (0)1224 649685