Aldeburgh Music

George Stronge (trumpet)
George (16) a Wymondham College student started playing trumpet after realising that the flute would never satisfy his appetite for making a lot of noise! Last year he came 3rd in the Norfolk Young Musician Competition and now studies with John Young at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Academy, where he also plays with the symphony orchestra. When not playing trumpet, george is usually playing bass guitar with the Norwich Students Jazz Orchestra and in various jazz ensembles, or composing on the piano.

Lizzi Tocknell (French horn) 
Lizzi has been surrounded by music since she was little, as her mother is a violin teacher. She began playing the horn aged nine, and studies at the Junior Trinity College of Music, playing in many ensembles both there and at school. Lizzie also enjoys horse-riding and gliding when she can make time for them.

Grace Warren (oboe)
Grace is 17 years old and is currently studying oboe at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Since 2002. she and two fellow oboe players have competed in the National Festival of Music for Youth, reaching the finals three times and have also aired on BBC Radio 2 in 2009. She is part of the National Youth Orchestra and plays principal oboe in the Junior Guildhall Symphony Orchestra. One day, grace would love to be playing as a professional musician, but she also has a passion for teaching.  

Alex Wilson (piano)
Alex first started learning the piano at age 8 and took up the violin the following year. He plays the violin with his school orchestra at Chesterton Community College and in the Cambridge Quartet Club. As well playing piano, violin and guitar he has recently begun composing for his band, made up of himself, Alex Cook and Luke Fitzgerald (AYM). He also enjoys playing jazz, folk and klezmer violin and improvising on the piano.

Alex Woolf (composition)
Alex was born in 1995, and has been an Aldeburgh Young Musician since 2008. His first study is composition, but he attained grade 8 piano aged 13 and also plays the violin, organ and saxophone. He studies composition at the Guildhall School of Music in London with Jeffery Wilson, where he also studies conducting and jazz piano. The connections Alex has made at Aldeburgh mean he has also been taught by some of the country’s leading composers, including Colin Matthews, Larry Goves, Antony Pitts, Richard Baker, Charlotte Bray and Anna Meredith.

Becoming an Aldeburgh Young Musician changed Alex’s life - it was the catalyst for almost all musical activity since. Through and because of AYM, Alex’s work has had many public performances, including his brass quintet in Woodbridge, his orchestral ‘Circus Suite’ in Ipswich, and his chamber piece “In the Gut” at the Southbank Centre. He has conducted a variety of his works in the Britten Studio, and Alex’s music has been heard extensively in London, played by artists such as Onyx Brass, Ian Clarke and Hans Kujit, the latter performing his saxophone and piano piece again both in the UK and the Netherlands.