About Me
I am currently a third year PhD student at the University of Liverpool and work as a professional violinist and upper strings teacher. I am currently based in Manchester, but work across the UK and abroad.
I started to learn the violin at the age of four and enjoyed a very busy and successful musical journey as a child. I was a member of the National Youth Orchestra for five years, leaving as Principal Second Violin. I led my local youth orchestras for two years, I won several local competitions and even made it to the string semi-final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year. I travelled with my violin from the age of 11 enjoying tours of Canada, Finland, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany and Austria.
I opted to do an academic music degree at the University of Hull (transferring from management) where I graduated with a first class honours degree and the Andrew Brown University Prize in 2004. I then turned to Conservatoire studies at the Royal Northern College of Music where I studied with David Adams and Christopher Rowland before graduating with a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance in 2005.
I am very fortunate to enjoy a varied and successful career as a freelance violinist, with opportunities to work as a soloist, a chamber musician, an orchestral player, a pit musician and as a session player. I have played with some of the industry’s biggest names including the Hallé, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Karl Jenkins, Tasmin Little, Russell Watson, Stewart Copeland, Raphael Wallfisch, Katherine Jenkins, Wynne Evans and the Ministry of Sound. Highlights of my career include: co-founding and then leading professional chamber orchestra Skipton Camerata for over ten years; playing violin and viola for the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester’s production of ‘The Producers’, performing live as a soloist with organist Daniel Justin on BBC Radio 3 and touring Canada with Sinfonia UK and Canadian Jazz pianist David Braid.
I was recently looking for new challenges and opportunities and after dabbling in the art of travel blogging and photography, decided to become a student once again to explore other areas of the music industry. In September 2019 I joined the Music Industry Studies MA programme at the University of Liverpool and so began my new found enthusiasm for music research. It was during my time studying that I discovered my growing interest in the business functions of the music industry and more specifically, music copyright and the industry’s growing interest in technology, in particular artificial intelligence and augmented, virtual and mixed reality.
To obtain a PhD qualification and become a Doctor of Philosophy in music has been an ambition of mine for several years now and my engagement on the MA course at Liverpool fine tuned where my true passion and interests lie. Hopefully in a couple of years time I’ll be updating this site to Dr Rachael Drury!
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