Our Tutors
Meet our team of experienced professional musicians who coach our chamber music.
Adam Precious

Course Director and Double Bass
Adam Precious was a product of the Leicestershire County School of Music in its heyday. Working with the likes of Tippett, Previn, Kyung Wha Chung, Philip Fowke, Havergal Brian and Campoli, he appeared on television with the youth orchestra, made records and toured Europe. He left school at 16 to become part of the first in-take of the new Royal Northern College of Music, studying with Adrian Beers, and 5 years later was in the first year of The National Centre for Orchestral Studies on a BBC Bursary, studying with Gerald Drucker.
Adam Precious has had a long association with London’s major symphony and chamber orchestras, touring the world extensively. His freelance commitments as a double bass player include film and television work, contemporary music groups and chamber music. He believes strongly in music education, teaching in two major independent schools, and is a popular chamber music tutor and coach.
Michael Bell

Piano
Michael Bell studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with Derryck Wyndham and Sulamita Aronovsky and later at the State Academy of Music in Warsaw, after being awarded the Chopin Fellowship by the Polish government. He has won several other awards and prizes at national and international piano competitions and has given numerous performances throughout Europe, Africa and Australia. He has also broadcast on television and radio.
An extensive solo repertoire includes over 30 concertos and he has recorded works by Haydn, Janacek, Tchaikovsky and Grieg as well as contemporary piano music, including a new piece dedicated to him by Peter Seabourne.
Michael is often invited to sit on jury panels at international piano competitions. He is a Lecturer and Director of Performance at Keele University on a part-time basis and also works as accompanist and chamber music player. He has proved to be a very popular member of the ICMSS coaching team.
Diana Cummings

Violin
Diana Cummings is one of the best known and most distinguished violinists in Great Britain. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music, in Rome and in New York and was a prize winner in the International Violin Competition ‘Nicolo Paganini’. Her career has developed over a very wide spectrum of musical activities.
As a chamber musician she is the leader of the Cummings String Trio and the English String Quartet and is artist in residence of the London Festival of Chamber Music. She is also a recitalist and concerto soloist with a very wide and varied repertoire and is in continuous demand as orchestral leader, guest leading many of the major symphony orchestras. In all these capacities she has made many recordings and CDs, has broadcast frequently and toured extensively throughout Great Britain, Europe and the USA.
Diana is a professor and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and a professor at Trinity College of Music. She has an international reputation as a teacher and adjudicator.
Jonathan Price

Bassoon
Jonathan Price studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with John Orford, Meyrick Alexander and Robin O’Neill, and over the last twenty five years has established a busy and successful career as a freelance orchestral, chamber and session bassoonist. He has played with many of the leading orchestras and ensembles in the UK including the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and English Chamber Orchestra. Teaching and music education also play a large part in Jonathan’s varied career. He teaches in schools, leads classes and adjudicates at conservatoire level, with many past pupils who are now beginning their own professional careers.
David Rix

Clarinet
David Rix was for many years the principal clarinettist for Richard Hickox’s City of London Sinfonia, participating in scores of recordings of Britten Operas with Richard and for John Ritter alongside many Proms performances. Subsequently he became a founder member of the Oxford Philharmonic, an elite international team of freelance musicians. He has performed with all the London Orchestras and been involved in two hundred or so commercial recordings. David has managed to maintain a teaching presence throughout his career and performed for ten years at Opera Holland Park. He continues to hold teaching positions at Bedford and Oakham schools.
Nick Stringfellow

Cello
Nick Stringfellow was educated at Chetham’s School of Music, performing in masterclasses with Heinrich Schiff and Janos Starker. After study at the Royal Northern College of Music, he completed his training at the Royal College of Music, studying with Anna Shuttleworth and Anthony Pleeth. Nick played with the London Mozart Ensemble and then became principal cellist with the Orchestra of the Swan. He appears as soloist with the orchestra and takes part in its extensive education programme. As a chamber musician, Nick has performed with many groups including the Fitzwilliam String Quartet and the Brook Street Band and recorded for EMI, Naxos, Somm and Orfeo. He is the featured cellist on Schott’s “Baroque around the World” series and his trio “Spirituoso” is currently resident ensemble at Handel House. Nick is also passionate about the string arrangements of the great Jazz and Soul era.
Justin Ward

Viola
Justin Ward studied at the Guildhall School of Music with Nannie Jamieson and Jack Glickman. After 8 years with the Bournemouth Symphony and BBC Radio Orchestra, where he loved working with the BBC Big Band, Justin has spent most of his working life freelancing widely in London, including 6 string quartet tours to Japan, a concert with Shirley Bassey under the Sphinx, Ring Cycles with Welsh Opera and much symphonic, chamber orchestra and studio work. However, chamber music has always been an major part of his musical life, both coaching players of all ages and playing with colleagues both amateur and professional.
Richard Weigall

Oboe
Richard Weigall was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He gained a Foundation Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music in London with Terence MacDonagh and, whilst there, was awarded the prestigious Worshipful Company of Musicians’ medal. After graduating from the Royal College he studied privately for a year with Johann Baptist Schlee in Essen, Germany. Richard returned to this country to take up the post of principal oboe with English National Opera. Two years later he joined the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra as principal oboe, where he stayed for 23 yearsNow freelancing, Richard has appeared as guest principal oboe with many British and European Orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Radio Sinfonie-Orchester Stuttgart, Belgian Chamber Orchestra and Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra. He has broadcast as a recitalist several times for BBC Radio 3. Currently principal oboe with the Orchestra of the Swan, Richard also teaches oboe at the Birmingham Conservatoire.