‍Alma Orr-Ewing Course Leader

‍Alma is a viola player based in Manchester. Her career as a violist started aged 13 when she performed Telemann’s Viola Concerto in G major with the Orquesta de Cámara de Jimena de la Frontera. Since then, Alma has flourished as a chamber and orchestral musician. She freelances with many UK orchestras, including Manchester Camerata, Hallé Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She was one of Manchester Camerata’s 360 Fellows in the academic year 2024-2025 and during that time was very involved with their outreach programmes, including their Music in Mind programme for people living with dementia and their work in schools. She has played in Wigmore Hall with the Hestia Quartet and live on BBC Radio 3’s programme ‘In Tune’ with the Headrow Quartet and has performed Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae as a soloist with the Taunton Sinfonietta.

‍Alma spent the first 14 years of her life in rural Southern Spain and is fluent in English and Spanish. She studied Maths and Music at the University of Leeds, graduating with First Class Honours and having been awarded the Dean’s Prize for Mathematics. Alma did her postgraduate at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, learning with Dr Louise Lansdown, and was awarded a Master of Music with Distinction. She followed this with an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma course specialising in professional performance, learning with Adam Romer and Lucy Nolan, alongside the NEXT training programme with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

‍Magdalen Farm Strings has been a part of Alma’s life since the first course in 2008, when she was 9 and one of the youngest participants on the course. Magdalen nurtured Alma’s love of music all through her childhood and teenage years and it brings her immense joy to provide this experience for current participants.

‍Polly has been a course tutor at Magdalen Farm Strings since its founding in 2008. Polly, along with Sarah, started Magdalen Farm Strings with the aim of providing a high-quality, fun musical experience for her own children who lacked such opportunities in Southern Spain where they lived at the time. All four children were participants on the course for as long as they could be and Alma and Poppy are now course leader and house mother respectively making it a family affair. Polly is a qualified music therapist and works in special education and mental health - Polly Orr-Ewing Music Therapy

‍Polly’s early musical education was greatly influenced by a privately-run annual chamber music week in Wales. It was on these camping weeks, which also involved a lot of outdoor activity in the Welsh countryside, that she really developed a passion for playing chamber music, particularly the quartet repertoire. Memories of these wonderful weeks were a huge inspiration for the founding of Magdalen Farm Strings. 

‍After completing a degree in music at Manchester University Polly spent many years living and working in Spain where she was involved in the founding of three music schools in villages where music education was scarce. During this time, she performed with various chamber ensembles and orchestras, alongside family and teaching commitments.

‍Moving to Somerset in 2013, Polly has completed the training for the Professional Certificate in Dalcroze Eurhythmics and subsequently an MA in Music Therapy. 

‍Having taught music for 25 years, including group and individual instrumental tuition, Dalcroze Eurythmics and curriculum music, Polly is now focusing more on music therapy, specialising in special education and mental health.

‍Polly continues to perform regularly with the Kilima String Quartet, the Kilima Piano Trio and the Taunton Sinfonietta.

‍Pete is a multi-instrumentalist based in Manchester with an expertise in oral tradition. Originally a classical pianist, a love for accordion developed from his focus on folk traditions (Irish, Klezmer and Balkan), jazz and composition. He now performs full-time as an accordionist and drummer for multiple bands including Good Habits and The Trouble Notes (DE). These groups have allowed him to travel internationally, performing at some of the world’s largest festivals since graduating from studying music at The University of Manchester in 2019. His classical training, paired with his traditional Irish music background gives him a multi-layered approach to teaching that aims to develop oral and improvisational skills as well more traditional performance skills, helping people find the joy in creating music together without sheet music.

‍Poppy’s love for Magdalen has brought her back for her sixth year of House Mothering!

‍After completing a degree in Psychology at the University of Bristol, Poppy has worked in early years settings while gaining her Level 3 Forest School qualification. She is passionate about the benefits that outdoor environments bring to learning and wellbeing.

‍Poppy’s approach to creating an extraordinarily fun and rewarding time at Magdalen draws on both her professional experience in childcare and her valuable insight from spending almost 10 years as a participant on the course herself. She takes a holistic approach to learning, combining creative activities, practical skills, teamwork, and a bit of silliness to enrich the course experience beyond the musical sessions themselves.

‍Poppy is the Designated Safeguarding Lead, with Level 3 Safeguarding and Outdoor First Aid qualifications. She is confident in supporting children through homesickness, illness, and managing medication, with the aim of creating a nurturing and joy-filled environment for everyone.

‍Serena is returning for her 4th year as a House Mother having recently completed her degree with first-class honours in English Literature and Music at Newcastle University. She is a semi-professional pianist, cellist and singer who found inspiration and connection at Magdalen as a participant years ago and has been unable to live without it since! With a background in education, Serena has spent time working at Sherborne School and Abbey (2021) and Sherborne International School (2023). Serena combines her classical training with a love of jazz and jokes to create an atmosphere that puts the ‘fun’ in ‘functional,’ and can’t wait to be a part of another musical and inspirational year at Magdalen Farm Strings.

‍Colin was born in London in 1946. He studied with Arnold Whittall and Nicholas Maw; in the 1970s he was assistant to Benjamin Britten, and worked for many years with Imogen Holst. His collaboration with Deryck Cooke on the performing version of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony lasted from 1963 until its publication in 1975.

‍Over four decades his music has ranged from solo piano music through five string quartets and many ensemble and orchestral works. From 1992-9 he was Associate Composer with the LSO, writing amongst other works a Cello Concerto for Rostropovich. In 1997 his choral/orchestral Renewal, commissioned for the 50th anniversary of BBC Radio 3, was given a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.

‍Orchestral works since 2000 include Reflected Images for the San Francisco SO, Berceuse for Dresden for the New York Philharmonic, Turning Point for the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Traces Remain for the BBC SO.

‍Matthews was Composer-in-Association with the Hallé – for whom he completed his orchestrations of Debussy’s 24 Preludes in 2007 – from 2001-10. He is now the orchestra’s Composer Emeritus.

‍His violin concerto for Leila Josefowicz and the CBSO was premiered in 2009. In 2011 he completed works for the London Sinfonietta, City of London Sinfonia and Leipzig Gewandhaus. He wrote his 4th String Quartet, for the Elias Quartet, in 2012, and his 5th, for the Tanglewood Music Center, in 2015; Spiralling was written for Spira Mirabilis in 2014; The Pied Piper, a collaboration with Michael Morpurgo, was performed by the LPO in 2015.

‍Matthews is Founder and Executive Producer of NMC Recordings, Executive Administrator of the Holst Foundation and Music Director of the Britten-Pears Foundation. He has been co-director with Oliver Knussen of the Aldeburgh Composition Course since 1992, and composition director of the LSO’s Panufnik Scheme since 2005. He holds honorary posts with several universities and is Prince Consort Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music.

‍Colin has written a new work for Magdalen Farm Strings every year since the course began.

‍Sarah was Development Manager at The Magdalen Environmental Trust from 2007 to 2017, when she retired to become a Trustee of the charity. Before that she ran a successful £1.5 million building appeal for The Marchant-Holliday School, a Special Needs School near Wincanton. Sarah and her husband moved to Somerset in 2000 from London, where she was an editor at Faber and Faber for several years and more latterly worked for Macmillan Cancer Support, notably as fund raiser for The Pembridge Centre, a hospice in North Kensington.

‍The idea for Magdalen Farm Strings was inspired by her violinist daughter’s enjoyment of music camps in which she took part during her teenage years. The music-making, companionship and fun she experienced at Pigotts made a lasting impression, and were certainly a major factor in her decision to make music her career.