Edinburgh Young Musicians

Director: Jean Murray, B.Mus, 11 Melville Place, Edinburgh, EH3 7PR

Phone/Fax: 0131-226-3392

Click here to send an e-mail

Emergency phone (Saturday mornings only) 07956-315913

Dawn Aird, ALCM, LLCM – teacher of cello and chamber music - has taught cello in Fife schools for over 25 years, also coaching and conducting many school ensembles as well as the Fife Youth String Orchestra, the Fife Schools String Orchestra and the Fife Junior String Orchestras. In 2004 she was the Fife finalist in the Yamaha Instructors Award.

Laura Cross, BA Hons (Performing Arts - Music Major), PGCE (Primary) - teacher of P1 musical play classes and choir - has been teaching infants since 1987, as well as working with school choirs, and is currently on the staff of Buckstone Primary School. Since January 2007, she has also been employed by NYCoS to teach Kodály musicianhip in Edinburgh primary schools. She studied violin with Maurice Memmot and has played with the Edinburgh Symphony Orchestra since moving to Edinburgh in 1986.

Susan Fuchs, AGSM, LTCL – teacher of recorder - trained as a recorder player with Peter Holtslag at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and worked for many years as a freelance recorder player and teacher in London, where her performances included appearances with the Parley of Instruments and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.  She has lived in Edinburgh since 1988 and also teaches recorder at The City of Edinburgh Music School, The Mary Erskine School for Girls, Stewart's Melville College and privately, and takes occasional work as an adjudicator.

Anne Giles, B.Ed, LTCL – teacher of violin, viola, chamber music and string orchestra - currently also works at St. Mary’s Music School, The Mary Erskine School for Girls and Stewart’s Melville College, as well as taking private pupils. She sings with the Chapter House Singers, plays the violin with Sinfonia, and plays early stringed instruments with the Edinburgh Renaissance Band.

Alex Goskirk, BA Hons (singing teaching endorsement), ALCM – teacher of musical workshop classes and choir – studied singing at the RSAMD in Glasgow, winning the Prize for Vocal Ensembles with the Athena Quartet in her first year. As a soprano soloist, she has performed with choral societies around Scotland, and appears regularly with the Cruiteran String Quartet. She has worked as a music specialist in Stirling Council primary schools and is currently a full-time singing teacher in Stirling Council schools and is on the staff of NYCoS Stirling Children’s Choir.  

Areti Lymperopoulou, MMus, Kodály AdvDip, PerfDip (Piano) – teacher of choir and musicianship – grew up in Patra, Greece. After 2 years studying choral conducting and teaching methodology at the Zoltán Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music in Hungary, she moved to the UK in 2006. She has been Senior Musical Director of the Peterborough Young Singers and a Kodály Musicianship Tutor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic training choirs. She is currently on the music staff at Balerno High School and also holds the Alexander Gibson Fellowship of the RSNO Chorus.

Julie Morrice, DipABRSM -  teacher of pre-school musical play classes – is a singing teacher with a special interest in working with young children. She trained in Kodály methodology in Kecskemét, Hungary and runs Mini Music Maker classes for the National Youth Choir of Scotland. She works in Edinburgh schools on the Youth Music Initiative programme, conducts Broughton Junior Choir in the Scottish Borders and is a member of the Scottish Chamber Choir.

Jean Murray, B.Mus. - Director of Edinburgh Young Musicians, and teacher of recorder and chamber music – has been organising extra-curricular musical activities for children for 20 years. She is also Director of the Scottish Schools Orchestra Trust, which runs residential courses and occasional days of orchestral playing for children aged 8 to 15, and she works as a freelance flautist, mainly playing with small chamber groups at weddings and other functions, and as a flute teacher at St. Andrews University Music Centre and privately.

Simon Rennard, M.Mus, B.Mus (Hons), LTCL – teacher of recorder – also teaches both recorder and bassoon privately and at schools in the Edinburgh area. Since completing his studies in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Amsterdam, his work as a freelance bassoonist has included playing with the Scottish Chamber, Royal Scottish National, London Philharmonic, Britten-Pears, Edinburgh Grand Opera, British Youth Opera and Flevolands Symphony Orchestras and the Manchester Camerata.

Gill Simpson, ALCM – teacher of violin – is Senior String Teacher at the High School of Dundee, where she teaches violin and viola and directs the Symphony Orchestra and various string ensembles. She is Musical Director of Summer Sinfonia music week in New York and has co-ordinated educational projects for children and adults combining classical and traditional music. She performs and records for BBC Radio Scotland with her own string ensemble and with the Wayne Robertson Band, as string player, keyboard player and vocalist, and is a former Classic FM Music Teacher of the Year in Scotland.