Michelle

Michelle Holloway moved to Birmingham in 2006 to further her studies in Recorders at the Birmingham Conservatoire, where she gained a First Class Honours degree under the tuition of Ross Winters and Annabel Knight. During this time, Michelle also studied with Bart Coen and Peter de Clercq at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels after gaining a place on the Erasmus exchange programme. Whilst in her second year of study, Michelle became one of the youngest students to win the Birmingham Conservatoire Recorder Prize and was also a finalist in the Doris Newton Club Prize.

Currently, Michelle keeps her wide-ranging ‘recorder fix’ by playing with the early music group K’antu Ensemble (with whom she has played live on BBC Radio 3’s programme‚ “In Tune”), the Birmingham based 6-piece folk band, The Bonfire Radicals (who are currently recording their first album) and the contemporary ensemble Decibel, which sees the recorder as an integral part of a 9-piece amplified ensemble. Michelle has performed in venues up and down the country, including King’s Place and the Cadogan Hall in London, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, and a variety of folk clubs and festivals. Additionally, she has recently completed a European tour of Sebastian Mattias’ Danserye, a music and dance collaboration based on the work of the same name by the Renaissance composer Tielman Susato.

Michelle also has a passion for music education and music in the community. She is experienced in a wide range of environments: from Early Years settings to song-writing in mental health settings. She is also a recorder and woodwind teacher for the Birmingham Music Service. In September 2011, she was appointed conductor of the Birmingham Schools’ Recorder Sinfonia, and she became conductor of the Heart of England Recorder Orchestra in September 2014.