Ensemble Tramontana

Louise Eekelaar studied with Alison Wells and Timothy Travers-Brown at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she obtained her LTCL Diploma with distinction, and holds a Masters in Early Music from the University of York.

She has sung in many small ensembles as a consort singer and soloist, including the Ebor Singers, and sang with the Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi during its European tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and its BBC4 and Radio 3 documentary of Vivaldi’s Gloria. Louise also sang the music of Hildegard von Bingen in recordings and a European tour with Sinfonye. In the past year she has sung in masterclasses given by Dame Emma Kirkby, Robert Hollingworth, Harry Bicket and Jessica Cash.

As well as singing in Ensemble Tramontana, she currently sings with Cappella Nova and the trio Virtuosa, and was recently a choral scholar at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Rie Kosaka is a vocalist and harpist specialising in early music. She enjoys both singing and playing the harp and has a passion for Medieval and Renaissance music.

Julie Dean gained her BMus degree in 1998 at Goldsmith College, London. In 2006, after a successful management career in retail and the licensed trade, she returned to music attending Trinity College of Music for her MMus studying the recorder with Rebecca Miles and Viola da Gamba with Alison Crum. Julie is also interested in playing middle eastern percussion instruments. For her personal project she is researching the effects of hearing loss in musicians.

As a recorder player her performances have included the Greenwich International Early Music Festival, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Southbank Centre, The Exmoor Singers of London and historical dance group The Renaissance Footnotes.

Julie works actively teaching adult amateur recorder players including directing three groups and conducting for the Society of Recorder Players. Recently she has taught at a workshop in France for recorder players from across Europe. She is also one of a few teachers in the UK qualified to teach the recorder to early years children using the Suzuki method.

Eszter Komáromi  moved to the UK in 2007 from Hungary, where she studied biology and computer programming and worked as a software developer.

 Her passion, however, has always been for music. She started the cello at the age of seven and played in various orchestras and chamber music formations until she started learning the viol in 2004, taking private lessons from S?ndor Sz?szv?rosi. She attended courses in Hungary (Bukk Summer Academy) and abroad.

 Eszter is now keen to start a career in music. After obtaining her LTCL diploma in July 2010, she is in the first year of her Master of Music studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, supported by the Ferrabosco Scholarship. She is working on projects at Trinity Laban including collaborations with the departments of Composition and Jazz; a study of the acoustics of playing outdoors and in other non-traditional venues; and the development of software to assist students in choosing historically and structurally appropriate ornamentation. Eszter recently gave a recital of mostly unaccompanied French baroque solo viol music; she is an active member of Trinity Laban's early music ensembles and has performed with various groups and individuals such as the Lovekyn consort, the Exmoor Singers of London, and Philip Thorby.

Esha Neogy is a postgraduate student at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from the University of Hawaii and is a member of the Hawaii-based group Europa Early Music Consort, with which she has performed in numerous concerts and school programmes. Esha now also performs in Trinity Laban Early Music Department concerts; serves as a deputy teacher of the adult viol class at Morley College; and has participated in community concerts in London, theatre performances in Oxford, and British Library functions.

 In addition, she is a writer, editor, deafness services provider, mediator, and conference director. She directed the Biennial Conference on Literature and Hawaii’s Children from 1998 to 2004 and organised the international Pan-Pacific Gamba Gathering in 2007, held in Honolulu on the theme of the viola da gamba as a ‘world’ instrument and including sessions on crossover and new music as well as the viol’s core history and repertoire.