Carol Taylor (current Musical Director)
Carol attended the Royal College of Music Junior Department and was awarded a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she was awarded the Guildhall School Chamber Music Prize. She also holds an ABRSM Bursary for achieving one of the highest marks for grade 8 saxophone. She studied clarinet with Angela Fussell and Antony Pay, piano with Harold Parker and Amanda Warren and conducting with Alan Hazeldine and Harold Dexter.
As an educator she has conducted concert bands, clarinet, saxophone, string, recorder and handbell ensembles and was responsible for leading the saxophone choir and novices at annual East Anglian Single Reed Festivals. Carol played E flat clarinet with EASRC since its inception and now her conducting skills have been brought out of retirement to direct the ensemble.
Carol is also the principal alto clarinettist in the British Clarinet Ensemble, principal clarinet in the Essex Chamber Orchestra and enjoys regular solo and chamber music performing. She was a member of the panel of ABRSM examiners for 26 years, work which took her all over the world.
Elizbeth Worth: Elizabeth studied clarinet with Charles Hine and musical direction with Dr Mark Bellis at Colchester Institute; she was musical director of EASRC from November 2019 until June 2022.
Anthony Bailey: Anthony, who studied clarinet with Angela Fussell at the Junior department of the Royal College of Music, is a teacher, composer, clarinettist and conductor. He was musical director of EASRC from Autumn 2008 until the summer of 2019. As a clarinettist Anthony has played and recorded with the London Mozart Players, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, and the English Chamber Orchestra. He is a member of the Chinook Clarinet Quartet, with whom he has regularly performed throughout the UK in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, and the Bridgewater Hall. The quartet have recorded two CDs and performed live on BBC Radio and TV. As an education workshop leader, he has run projects for the London Mozart Players, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Roman River Festival.
As a composer, Anthony has written works for the National Youth Wind Ensemble of Great Britain, an SPMN commission for the BBC Singers, and two orchestral pieces for the Philharmonia orchestra, one of which was conducted by HRH The Prince of Wales.
Anthony’s first opera The Black Monk (which he adapted himself from the Chekhov short story,) was premiered in 2003 to public acclaim by the Sirius ensemble at the Bloomsbury theatre in London.
He is the Head of Woodwind at Wellington College, a woodwind coach and conductor for the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain and National Youth Orchestra and he conducts the City Lit Orchestra and runs music courses all over the country.
He has been the conductor of the Symphonic Wind Orchestra and the Clarinet Choir at the Royal College of Music Junior department since 2004, where he also teaches the clarinet, many pupils have gone on to the national conservatoires. There are often several of Anthony’s pupils in the clarinet section of the National Youth Orchestra.
Charles Hine: Conductor and Musical Director 2006 – Summer 2008: Charles Hine, who passed away on 01 January 2024, was Head of Woodwind and Head of Performance Studies at the Colchester Institute Centre for Music and Performing Arts and conductor of the Essex Youth Symphonic Wind Orchestra. For many years he directed the Wind Orchestra and Clarinet Choir at the Royal College of Music, Junior Department. Charles was conductor of the British Clarinet Ensemble for nearly 25 years – quite an achievement!
Angela Fussell, who sadly passed away on 28th February 2006, had a varied career that encompassed all fields of music – chamber, solo, orchestral, teaching, ABRSM examining, coaching, adjudicating, lecturing, mentoring and writing.
She was one of the senior Professors at Colchester Institute and she also taught at Eton and the Royal College of Music Junior Department.
Having started the first all Saxophone Choir to meet on a regular basis in 1990 at the Colchester Institute, Angela decided to form this community Single Reed Choir to fill a gap in the playing opportunities on offer in Essex and the surrounding areas. It continues to prosper and will achieve its 25th Anniversary in 2025.