Hilary Michael
Scottish violinist and saxophonist Hilary Michael graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2006, where she studied the violin with Richard Deakin and Pavlo Beznosiuk, and the saxophone with Martin Speake. A specialist in Baroque violin, jazz and improvisation, she has a wide variety of musical skills, influences and passions, at the heart of which lies the music of J.S Bach and Duke Ellington.
Hilary has performed and recorded all over the world with ensembles such as Dunedin Consort, Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestre Romantique et Revolutionnaire and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She has performed at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival on numerous occasions, and last year played a solo recital at St Cecilia’s Hall as part of International Women’s Day.
She has been a tutor on the Richard Michael Summer Jazz Course for 24 years and for the last 9 years has been the Historical Performance specialist at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh where she teaches Baroque violin, Jazz violin, Improvisation and directs both the Early Music Group and Jazz Combo.
She lives in Edinburgh with her husband Tom, daughters Ailish and Caitlin and cat Matilda.
Eliot Murray
Since moving to Glasgow to study music Eliot has been working as an instrumental instructor in schools teaching guitar, bass and woodwind instruments. He has also taught voice at Strathclyde University and has been a tutor on various summer jazz schools for the last 30 years.
He has been performing live for over 30 years as a function band leader, soloist and music director. He has been a resident musician at many venues throughout Scotland including a long association with Gleneagles Hotel. He has arranged lots of music for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducting them on several occasions and was the director, pianist and arranger of their big band for 7 years. Eliot has also arranged for and directed the BBC Big Band many times broadcasting regularly on Radio 2. He has had the privilege of working with great artists like Lesley Garrett, Eddi Reader, Liane Carroll, Madeleine Bell and had the honour of directing and arranging the music for the BBC’s Frank Sinatra Centenary concert at the Festival Theatre with Curtis Steigers.
Eliot likes to play golf in his spare time, enjoys cooking and spending too much money eating out !