Meet the musicians

Ashleigh read music at Cardiff University before going on to specialise in flute performance at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama under the tutelage of Elizabeth May (BBC NOW) and Jonathan Burgess (WNO).
Growing up in the South Wales Valleys, Ashleigh was surrounded by music from a young age, highlights of his early career include performing with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales, travelling Europe with many youth ensembles and being accompanist to the Rhymney Silurian Male Voice choir for over 10 years.
Ashleigh gives regular recitals in the UK and further afield in Berlin and Antwerp. As programmer he enjoys discovering and performing non-standard repertoire and challenging his audiences to experience music that they may not have come across before.
Alongside his passion for flute Ashleigh has a huge affiliation with the stage from opera to musical theatre. He is a supporter of his home opera company Welsh National Opera and attends as many productions as he possibly can.
Ashleigh currently resides in Bristol where he works as a freelance musician.

Stuart Ellam works as a freelance pianist accompanist and teacher. Specialising in chamber music and art song, he has performed the song cycles of Schumann, Schubert, Britten and Beethoven  along with the songs of Poulenc, Duparc, Debussy and Strauss, most recently giving lieder recitals with the soprano Margaret Walker in Lincoln.

Stuart has also collaborated with the photographer Mike Colechin on mixed media performance involving the piano works of Ligeti, Janacek and also Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise, Winter Journey.

As  Music Director he has worked with opera groups in London and the South East. His opera credits include Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Un Ballo in Maschera and Macbeth (Verdi), Faust (Gounod) and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Wagner).

As accompanist he worked for two years with the mezzo-soprano Anne Howells at the Royal Academy of Music after taking students and staff to the Edinburgh fringe to give two weeks of recitals of art song and opera scenes.

Stuart studied singing and violin before taking up the piano. He studied with Denise Patton and then with John Blakely.