Who's in the band?

Emily Baines MMus

Emily Baines was born in Birmingham and studied recorder there with Alan Davis. She then moved to the University of Hull where she further developed her interest in early music under Joan Dixon and Graham Sadler, winning both the University Prize for Music and the Mrs Sunderland Prize for Solo Performance in 2001. She then continued her studies at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague with Dorothea Winter and Peter van Heyghen (in recorder and consort playing) and Thea van der Putten and Gerda van Zelm (voice). Now back in the U.K. Emily continues to perform widely, both as a soloist and with various orchestras and ensembles. These have recently included the Orchestra of the Swan, London Handel Collection and L’avventura London(with whom she was recently featured on the recording ‘Handel in the Playhouse’), baroque ensembles The Musicians of London Wall and Tempus Fugit which she co-founded and recorder trio S3NSUS. She has also toured Australia where she gave concerto performances, lectures, masterclasses and made a recording with Salut! Baroque, all to great acclaim. She was awarded an MMus from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with distinction and followed this with two years as a Guildhall Artist Fellow. She now combines a busy teaching schedule with the pursuit of her own research and performing interests and freelance work

Alexis Bennett MMus

Alexis Bennett studied music, English literature and history at the
University of Edinburgh before postgraduate training at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Alexis has performed with a variety of groups including Florilegium, The Dufay Collective and Horses Brawl, and is a familiar face on the London ceilidh scene as a caller and fiddler. He is also a composer, largely for filmmakers and animators, and his music has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Channel 4, Turner Classic Movies and at film festivals worldwide, including Cannes, London and Edinburgh. He is currently researching his PhD at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Elektra Miliadou

After graduating in her hometown Thessaloniki, Greece, Elektra moved to London in 2003 to continue her cello studies. While in Royal College of Music she focused on historical performance and chamber music. She studied as a scholar the baroque cello, the viola da gamba and chamber music with Catherine Rimer, Richard Turnicliffe, Reiko Ichise and Ashley Solomon at the RCM and in July 2009 she was awarded a Master of Music in Advanced Performance and the McKenna Award for Baroque Music.

She has taken part in masterclasses given by David Watkin, Rachel Podger, Walter van Hauwe, Dame Emma Kirkby, Catherine Mackintosh and Jennifer Ward Clark among others.

As an active chamber musician Elektra has been a founding member of many ensembles. Her ensemble Amaranthos was a finalist in the York Early Music Competition 2007 and the Fenton House Early Keyboard Ensemble Competition 2008, and has performed at the Fraenkischer Sommerfest, Germany, London Handel Festival, Brighton Early Music Festival, St. Martin-in-the-Fields Early Music Festival and elsewhere. Along with the harpsichordist Erik Dippenaar, Elektra won the prize “Richard III” at the RCM Historical Performance Competition in July 2008.

As a continuo and chamber music cellist she regularly performs in venues such as the St John Smith Square, St George’s Hanover Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields and others. During the last year she has been a guest member of ensemble Melopoetica, with which she has appeared in Feldkirchen Festival in Austria, St Jame’s Piccadilly and the City Music Society.

Elektra’s recent orchestral experience includes playing with Florilegium (Royal Festival Hall), Latinitas Nostra (Greece), Os Orphicum (The Netherlands) and the Saraband Consort among others. She has been the continuo cellist at the RCM Baroque Orchestra for the last four years, with which she has extensively performed and recorded Handel, Purcell, Rameau, Bach and Telemann in major London venues under the direction of Ashley Solomon and Adrian Butterfield.

Concurrently Elektra coaches chamber music ensembles at the Royal College of Music as a member of Suave, Ensemble in Collaboration with the RCM Historical Performance Department.