Katy Elman (Concordia Ambassador) began playing the snare drum at the age of eight and soon won a place as a junior exhibitioner at The Guildhall School of Music. She then studied at The Purcell School and completed her fulltime education at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester where she was tutored by Paul Patrick, David Hext and David Hassel. She won a scholarship to further her studies with Richard Benjafield, Mike Skinner and Davd Corkhill at the Guildhall school of music. Katy made her solo London debut at St. James’s Piccadilly at the age of 14 and subsequently played timpani and orchestral percussion in some of the country’s leading concert venues including The Bridge Water Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Symphony Hall and The Barbican. In her final year of school she premiered The Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone, by the composer Tim Brice. Currently Katy is a member of the Aurelian Ensemble and very much in demand as a guest timpanist and percussionist with several orchestras based in London and the Home Counties. Katy is the 2008 winner of the Barthel International Prize for Excellence.
See Katy at UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre on 3rd February 2016.
 

James Larter was born in Northampton in 1994. Starting on the drum kit at the age of 10, he began studying percussion and piano when he gained a place at the Royal College of Music Junior Department the following year. Studying with Claire Hasted, he was awarded a music scholarship to Stowe School and in 2011, won the Peter Morrisson and the Percussion Prize at the RCMJD. For the sixth form he spent two years at the Purcell School under Kevin Hathway. James enjoys solo performances greatly and has played concertos at the Alfriston Festival, The Sage Gateshead and MediaCity, Salford. He has also premiered works at the Wigmore Hall and the Southbank Centre. James also reached the category finals of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2010 and 2012 and won the Purcell School Concerto Competition as well as winning a Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe scholarship in early 2012. He also recently performed Richard Rodney-Bennett’s Marimba Concerto on BBC Radio 3 with the BBC Philharmonic under the baton of John Wilson. As well as solo performances, James loves playing as a chamber and orchestral musician, playing in various jazz ensembles, such as the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and his own Jazz Quartet, ethnic music ensembles such as Paraiso Samba School and classical ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra, where he was joint-principal percussionist in 2012. He won the Norman-Butler English speaking Union Scholarship to study at the Boston Symphony Orchestra Summer course at Tanglewood in Summer 2014. James loves Outreach projects and teaching and when joining the Purcell School in 2010, was an ‘Impulse’ group leader, a group of musicians who gained a Diana Award in 2010. He loves working with children and he is part of the duo ‘GONG with the Wind’, with clarinettist Jordan Black that travels the country taking workshops in primary schools through the Concordia Foundation. Now studying with Andy Barclay, Simon Carrington, Eric Sammut and Colin Currie at the Royal Academy of Music, he hopes to become a chamber musician, an orchestral musician and soloist.