Our bassoonist Ruth Rosales devises and presents family/ schools concerts and workshops for the City of London and Britten Sinfonias amongst many others. For Riot Ensemble she focusses on the creative sounds and diversity of our music and uses interactive workshops to open up a world of sonic possibilities for our youngest audiences.

“The performance and the workshop were brilliant. My daughter learnt how to play in the orchestra and met with other scholars and lots of exceptional tutors. I hope there are more playing days in the future!“ - parent feedback

Our soprano and Education Director Sarah Dacey offers a project in which students compose a small chamber work using graphic notation inspired by the shapes and colours of the Bauhaus movement. Through a series of interactive workshops with Riot Ensemble musicians, we look together at existing graphic scores and the students explore musical texture, expression and form without feeling constrained by traditional notation. We then work alongside the students as they compose, and we perform and record their finished work. This project was pioneered at the Wiltshire Music Centre in 2023, and returns to hcmf// in 2024.

Our pianist and co-Artistic Director Adam Swayne organises participatory workshops in which students play side-by-side with Riot musicians in pieces that are artistically fascinating but practically accessible for players of varied abilities. We have worked with Contemporary Music for All and with the London Music Fund, of which their CEO Chrissy Kinsella is one of our trustees and a member of our education committee.

Marie-Louise Ptohos won Riot Ensemble’s Young Composer of the Year award, aged 10. Her piece The Moon Dance was presented at the Spitalfields Festival in 2015. She subsequently wrote for many other groups including the Gesualdo Six and London Sinfonietta.

Riot Ensemble is enjoying residencies at the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Liverpool, and we also undertake regular workshops with students at the Universities of Cardiff, Manchester, Southampton, RHUL, Trinity Laban, Royal College of Music and the RNCM. Alongside seminars aimed at student composers, and professional recordings of their work, we also offer opportunities for instrumentalists to play side-by-side with Riot in concert. Our musicians work extensively in HE, including Aaron Holloway-Nahum at Royal Academy of Music, Stephen Upshaw at Trinity Laban, Sarah Dacey at Leeds Conservertoire, Richard Craig at the University of Edinburgh, Adam Swayne as Deputy Head of Keyboard at Royal Northern College of Music and Pétur Jónasson, Head of Music at Iceland University of Arts.