Lunchtime Concert: Octonove Ensemble

The OctoNove Ensemble is a new chamber music ensemble, featuring some of the finest amateur musicians in London.

Mei Fujisato is a violinist from Japan. After graduating from DePauw University with the John and Esther Browning Scholarship, Presser Undergraduate Scholar Award and Van den Thompson Award in 2018, she completed her Master of Performance at Royal College of Music in 2020 under the direction of Radu Blidar.
Julia Hart – violin – graduated with a Master’s from Trinity Laban. She held the TCL and Len Smith & Felicity Young scholarships and was taught by Diana Cummings. She played solo violin for the musical ‘Allegiance’, which ran at the Charing Cross Theatre, and performed video-game music from ‘Call of Duty’ at the Troxy with orchestral band and choir.
Rachel Solomon Williams – viola – is Executive Director of the Aldersgate Group, an environment policy-focussed alliance of major businesses.
By day, Alison Atkinson – cello – works at the National Gallery where she manages the database of all customers, members and donors of the Gallery.
Jamie Parkinson – double bass – is a trade union official, a sender of emails and attender of meetings. He has now put too much time and effort into playing the double bass to be ready to consider whether that was a good idea.
Charlotte Woolley – clarinet – is a civil servant working for the Ministry of Defence, with responsibilities in the Defence nuclear research programme. She studied at Keble (2001-2009) and has a DPhil in Laser Physics.
Matthew Sackman – horn – spends his days telling computers what to do, and looking on in horror when they do exactly that. He spends his evenings doing much the same thing, but with his Horn.
Rick Yoder – bassoon – was a member of several professional orchestras, including those of Louisville (US), Monterrey (Mexico), and the Lower Rhine Symphony (Germany), before the frustrations of reed-making caused him to become a corporate tax attorney.