About Us

(Photo by Evan)

• • We have been in Cottenham since 2000, and have been playing and teaching in the Cambridge area for many years before that.

  • We have two separate teaching rooms; unfortunately our Yamaha U3 upright piano was written off in the flood at Christmas 2020 and has been replaced by a Schimmel upright in what was our living room. Our 'garden room' (9mx4.5m - 30ftx15ft) has a lovely 7' Schimmel grand piano. We are stabling a modern Bluthner grand, so we are able to play and teach on two pianos. We are also caretaking a 1780s square piano and an Alan Gotto 2-manual harpsichord (now restored by the maker), and own a bentside spinet built by Peter Barnes from a kit designed by his father John Barnes after an original from about 1715.

  • We work mostly separately (see our individual pages) but play together often: four-hands on one piano, two pianos, two bassoons, accompanying each other on bassoon or horn, playing in orchestras, wind quintets or wind bands. We are also half of a bassoon quartet!

  • Among other things, we have performed on piano together in Brahms' 'Liebeslieder' and Mathias' 'Learsongs' (with the New Cambridge Singers), Britten's 'St Nicholas' and Brahms' 'Ein Deutsches Requiem' in Maurice's own arrangement (with Cambridgeshire Choral Society, the New Cambridge Singers and Ely Choral Society), Orff's 'Carmina Burana', Dove's 'Arion and the Dolphin', Lambert's 'The Rio Grande' and Ramirez' 'Misa Criolla' (with Ely Choral Society), Saint-Saëns' 'Carnival of the Animals' (with Cambridge Sinfonia) and the first performance of Andrew Parnell's 'Alpha and Omega'. We have also been reciters in Walton's 'Facade' (alongside Nigel Brown; ensemble conducted by Christopher Robinson).

  • For many years now we have been involved with Cambridge Holiday Orchestra; Thanea directing the 10+ choir with Maurice accompanying. This has been so successful (as has Holiday Orchestra in general) that a 9+ choir has been added and (from summer 2016) an advanced 13+ SATB choir.

  • We originated, and were closely involved with the organisation of, the first Cambridge Grade One-a-thon in 2004, which raised about £60,000 for East Anglia's Childrens' Hospices. We then organised Head Back To School (head teachers attending their own school in uniform!), raising around £17,000 for the same charity.

  • In 2011 there was a new Grade One-a-thon to raise money for the Spinal Injuries Association. You may know one or more of the 140-odd local professional or semi-professional musicians who joined us. The group lesson date was Monday, January 3rd 2011 and the exam and concert day was Sunday, February 27th 2011. Approximately £90,000 was raised.

  • Following that event, we have both continued through the grades - Thanea on bassoon and Maurice still on horn - and played in Cambridge Wind Band between 2012 and 2019. In May 2012 we both passed Grade 5!

  • In February 2015 there was a Grade One-a-thon reunion event at West Road which raised about £26,000 for Médecins sans Frontières UK.

  • In summer 2017 we helped to organise the Oxford and Cambridge Note Race, raising over £100,000 for Home Start in both Oxford and Cambridge, and Blue Smile and the Alf Dubs Children's Fund (for resettlement of refugee unaccompanied minors) in Cambridge.

  • We are both Fellows of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (FISM).

• To find out more about Thanea, go here.

• To find out more about Maurice, go here.