As a champion of contemporary music and composers, and a lover of all types of music, Lisa has taken every opportunity to  premiere solo and ensemble works with groups like Continuum Ensemble, new london chamber ensemble and now Aquilae Duo, The Harborough Collective and her trio with ‘cellist Julian Metzger and pianist Paul Turner.  Each dedicated their concerts to introducing works with high integrity and cutting-edge ideas.  Several pieces commissioned through the groups were premiered by Lisa, including Kenneth Hesketh’s solo work Gabo’s Opus (recorded by BBC Radio 3), and ensemble works by Errolyn Wallen and Roger Smalley.  Lisa also gave first UK performances of Lowell Liebermann’s Flute Sonata, Eric Tanguy’s Further and Shulamit Ran’s East Wind.  Her other ‘first performance’ credits include works by Roderick Watkins, Paul Max Edlin, Malcolm Forsyth, Rob Buckland, Arlene Sierra, Sean Fergusson, José Evangalista, Isabelle Panneton, Claude Vivier, Olé Schmidt, Douglas Finch and Julian Andersson.

From 1992 till 1999, Lisa plunged into recital tours with pianist Kim Burwell.  They would perform the bulk of their programmes from memory...both of them!  Concerts were booked from St David’s Hall in Cardiff, Fairfield Hall in Croydon, Banff Fine Arts Festival in Canada, and even to Kuwait and Dubai (twice!).  They made their London Debut in the Purcell Room at the South Bank Centre.

In 1997, Boosey and Hawkes Musical Instrument Company decided to revamp their Buffet student-model flute, and a year later, Lisa was launching the new instrument along with a new facet to her career as Buffet Artiste and Clinician.  For the next 5 years she performed and gave masterclasses around Europe and North America under the B&H banner:  the Norwegian Conservatory, Bergen Music School, Linz Conservatory, Vienna Hochschulen, Banff Centre for the Arts, Dublin Institute of Technology (Conservatory), Cyprus Music Service, and the music services in Yorkshire, England.  She learned a lot about the improvements that needed to happen to the instrument, with a huge amount of help from the renowned flute maker, Albert Cooper, and the staff at Top Wind in London.  From 2000 to 2007 Lisa was Artistic Director for the Harrogate Flute Kitchen Summer School, where she lead masterclasses and gave concerts.

Lisa was a founding member of the group new london chamber ensemble and enjoyed 10 years of fantastic concerts and workshops.  They became one of the first wind quintets to stage Luciano Berio’s opus number zoo, and included it in most of their progammes.  More recently the group released a recording  of Carl Nielsen’s Quintet, using a newly edited score of the piece.  They performed the piece to rave reviews at the Wigmore Hall in 2009.  The nlce collaborated with directors (Philip Parr and Danny Scheinmann) and with the Dante Quartet and Angela Hewitt.  They have been coaching the National Youth Chamber Ensemble for over a decade.

In addition to performing and teaching, Lisa has been a judge at music festivals and contests.  In the past she has sat on  several ProCorda Chamber Music Festival competitions, Leigh-On-Sea Music Festival (several times!), Marlborough College Music Festival and the Music Festival at Cheltenham Ladies’ College.  In 2010 Lisa was THE judge at the “House Shout at Marlborough College”.  She was entertained by 14  boarding houses’ vocal ensembles, each with 76 members, and each performing a musical selection that everyone had to sing.  Lisa was asked to give a “masterclass” to the contestants and explain how the winning house was chosen.  One of the most challenging competitions, she found that picking a winning house was a powerful experience with the whole school and staff sitting in the hall waiting for the results.  The night proved to be very electric!

As an Artist for Yamaha Classical Division, playing a stunning 14K flute, Lisa is enjoying a wonderful chapter as a performer, having found her ‘voice‘ in this instrument.  Although the live concerts and appearances have been postponed, Lisa has been actively contributing to charities such as the Benslow Music Trust and Artists And Residents with performances online with both Aquilae Duo and Enigma14. With these events and while teaching stayed constant through the year, artistic integrity and buoyancy remains strong in Lisa’s life, and they will again revive the music community too in the coming months.

photo by Simon

  Richardson

photo by Carla Rees