
Programme and Performers
Caroline Shaw Thousandth Orange
Dobrinka Tabakova Insight
Elena Kats-Chernin The Three Dancers
Ezo Dem Sarici Göçebe Prenses
Her Ensemble
Ellie Consta director
Luba Tunnicliffe viola
Marianne Schofield bass
Ilona Suomalainen accordion
Elsa Bradley percussion
Laura van der Heijden cello
Jess Gillam saxophone
Junyan Chen piano
Julian Nichols dancer
A note from Ellie Consta, director of Her Ensemble
The concept for Her Ensemble came to fruition during the 2020 lockdown. At the time, I was living with artists/producers and began to notice how different our work lives and experiences were. Around the same time, I stumbled across a statistic brought to light by the organisation Donne, Women in Music, which discovered that in 2019 just 3.6 percent of the classical music pieces performed worldwide were written by women.
I was shocked to realise I could name only a handful of female composers despite being immersed in the classical industry and having studied at renowned institutions. This statistic made me question everything I’d taken for granted in the classical world, from dress codes to sweeping statements I’d heard time and time again, such as ‘there just haven’t been that many female composers’. I started researching and discovered a large gap in my education, with thousands of female composers pre-dating 450BC. I wanted to explore all this music that I’d never heard about and merge the aspects that I loved so much from both musical scenes. I think Her Ensemble is as much about questioning the status quo as it is about giving overlooked voices a platform. Or perhaps these things are synonymous.
I think I was drawn to each of the pieces programmed for similar reasons – although very different in style and character, each work blurs the lines between musical genres and eras in its own way. Inspired by the visual arts and storytelling, each piece has a timeless quality that evokes a visceral response through languages without words and communicated through personal experience and emotion. From folk songs dating back to the 1300s, to contemporary music that still uses the same harmony today, there is a synergy that intrinsically links these individual works – a reminder of our connection to a bigger ecosystem and that although sometimes seemingly abstract, the art we create is undoubtably influenced by the work of those around us and those who came before us.
Ellie Consta
Director, Her Ensemble
Programme notes
Artist biographies
Artist biographies

Her Ensemble
Her Ensemble is a free-form group described by Gramophone as ‘forward-thinking’ and by Classical Music magazine as ‘a group on their own terms’. Her Ensemble merges classical and contemporary sound worlds with genre-fluid programming and an unapologetically fresh perspective. From performing 11th-century folk tunes in clubs, to large-scale orchestral works in traditional concert venues, each performance becomes a storytelling experience rooted in shared emotion and history. ‘In the hands of Her Ensemble this world suddenly becomes more accessible, more inclusive … incredibly liberating.’ Simon Godley, God Is In The TV.
Since forming, the free-form group has released an EP of overlooked music with Sony Classical, recorded for Netflix and independent films featured at the BFI Festival, as well as creating its own string library with Dan Keen for Spitfire Audio.
Recent performance highlights include collaborating with Billie Marten and reimagining her songs for orchestra for a sold-out Barbican show, headlining its first tour with Through The Noise, collaborating with pole dancer Cami Arboles and selling out the Vienna Musikverein.
Her Ensemble has also been featured on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Pink News and Clash Magazine, as well as gaining recognition as Classic FM’s ‘Young Classical Stars’.
The group has also given masterclasses at Chetham’s School of Music, the Royal College of Music and Leeds Conservatoire.

Laura van der Heijden
Laura van der Heijden is recognised as one of the leading cellists of her generation. Recipient of the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award, she continues to captivate audiences and critics alike with her deeply perceptive interpretations and engaging, imaginative programming.
Highlights of this season include concertos with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; recitals at the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall with pianist Jâms Coleman; collaborative projects at the Seriös Festival in Helsinki; and a chamber project with Alina Ibragimova and Ben Goldscheider at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin.
She gave the world premiere of Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Earth, Sea, Air in 2023 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, performing it at last year’s BBC Proms. The work also features on her latest album, along with Bridge’s Oration and Walton’s Cello Concerto. An increasingly prominent voice on the classical music scene, she has recently appeared on Jess Gillam’s show This Classical Life and Tom Service’s Saturday Morning (both BBC Radio 3), as well as being the cover artist on The Strad.
Highlights of recent seasons include an ‘Artist in Focus’ at Kings Place and concerto appearances with the London Philharmonic, Aurora and Scottish Chamber orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and play/directing Britten Sinfonia. She also appeared at the Barbican with the BBC Symphony Orchestra as part of its George Walker ‘Total Immersion’ project.
She is a keen chamber musician and plays with the critically acclaimed Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, as well as with leading musicians including Timothy Ridout, Antje Weithaas, Max Baillie, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Hélène Clément and the Doric, Redon and Brodsky quartets.
She first came to prominence when she won the BBC Young Musician competition in2012 aged 15, and is a graduate of Cambridge University; she currently studies with Antje Weithaas in Berlin.
Laura van der Heijden plays a late 17th-century cello by Francesco Ruggieri of Cremona, on generous loan from a private collection.

Jess Gillam
Jess Gillam is celebrated as a leading figure of the saxophone. She has been invited to play on the world’s major stages since becoming the youngest ever soloist to perform at the Last Night of the Proms. Equally at home behind the microphone, she is the youngest ever presenter on BBC Radio 3 with her award-winning weekly show, This Classical Life.
She is passionate about broadening the repertoire for the saxophone and this season’s premieres include Anna Clyne’s Glasslands with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Dani Howard’s Saxophone Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
Highlights of her concerto appearances have included concerts with the BBC, Gothenburg, Houston, Iceland, Lahti, London and Sydney Symphony orchestras, the London, Munich and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras and the Minnesota Orchestra, among others.
On the recital stage, Jess Gillam has performed across Europe, the US and beyond. As an ECHO Rising Star in the 2022/23 season, she appeared at some of Europe’s most prestigious concert halls. She has also given recitals at the Kissinger Sommer, Schleswig-Holstein and Heidelberger Frühling festivals. Following her Carnegie Hall debut in the 2022/23 season and recitals at the Aspen Festival and Boston Celebrity Series, she returns to the US this season.
Collaboration is central to her music-making and she formed the Jess Gillam Ensemble in 2019 in order to take inspiration from different musical worlds.
She has an exclusive recording contract with Decca Classics and her albums Rise and Time have both reached No 1 in the UK Classical Music Charts.
In 2016 Jess Gillam became the first saxophonist to reach the finals of BBC Young Musician. She has been the recipient of a Classic BRIT Award and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2021. Returning to her roots in Ulverston in Cumbria, she continues to promote her own concert series in her hometown, which she founded aged 12.

Junyan Chen
Junyan Chen won Second Prize at the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition, where she also won the chamber music prize and Alexandra Dariescu award for a work by a woman composer. In the competition final she performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 4 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Domingo Hindoyan. She has also played this work with Edward Gardner and the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, in a concert that was livestreamed on Classic FM.
Recent and forthcoming solo engagements include concerts in Munich, London (Wigmore Hall), Leeds, Harrogate and Liverpool. Earlier this spring, she collaborated with the Manchester Collective in a project including a world premiere by Héloïse Werner with performances in Manchester, Leeds and London. She has a keen interest in contemporary music and has collaborated with Hans Abrahamsen, whose Piano Concerto she performed with the Manson Ensemble at the Royal Academy of Music. In addition, she took part in Eleanor Alberga's music festival Arcadia in 2022, recording and performing Dancing with the Shadows and On a Bat's Back I Do Fly. She has also worked with Mark-Anthony Turnage and Dominic Muldowney.
Junyan Chen's debut solo album, It's Time, features works by Fazil Say, Unsuk Chin, Sofia Gubaidulina and Eleanor Alberga. Released in 2022 by Linn Records, it explores cultural identity through different musical genres and art forms, including Turkish folk ballad, jazz, Russian poetry and African dance.
Following her time at the Shanghai Conservatoire, Junyan Chen moved to London and continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music. She currently holds a fellowship with the RAM, having recently graduated with first class BMus and MA degrees as a Bicentenary Scholar.

Julian Nichols
Julian Nichols is a Canadian-born choreographer, dancer, and founder of Bodies in Action, a London-based contemporary dance company. Hailing from Toronto, his practice centres on challenging normative ideas across various contexts, with a focus on physicality, thematic exploration and narrative.
He founded Bodies in Action in 2021 to create dance that represents all identities equally. Since its inception, the company has grown rapidly, receiving support from Arts Council England, Canada Council for the Arts, and The National Lottery Community Fund. The company’s programming includes performances, workshops, panel discussions and participatory events.
At the heart of Julian Nichols’s leadership is a strong belief in co-creation and shared ownership of artistic work. Whether through projects such as It's My Birthday! or international commissions such as GUARDIANS: Connecting Dance and Preservation (part of the Creative Europe – supported Green Streets initiative), he and Bodies in Action continue to carve out bold, transformative spaces for expression, activism and celebration.
Watch: Her Ensemble

Her Ensemble
Watch this video featuring the artists from Her Ensemble.