Bedfordshire Orchestral Society
Registered Charity Number: 262813
Jan Kaznowski has led the Bedford Sinfonia for twenty years. Jan started the violin at the age of eleven with Alexander Kirk, a peripatetic teacher who had been a founder member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Jan later studied at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Warsaw Conservatoire. He studied anthropology at Queens’ College, Cambridge, before becoming a member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the orchestras of English and Welsh National Opera.
Jan is now head of the string faculty for Bedfordshire Music, teaching the violin and viola and is the director of the county chamber music course. He also leads a quartet which has a repertoire that includes quartets by all of the major 19th and 20th century composers. He regularly appears as a soloist, having performed concertos by Dvorak, Beethoven, Elgar, Mozart, Saint Saens, Mendelssohn and Bruch as well as Berlioz’s 'Harold in Italy' and the Brahms double concerto.
Caroline Waters was born in Jersey and began violin lessons at the age of 7. With the help of a musical benefactor, Caroline continued her studies from the age of 14 in Manchester at Chetham’s School of Music. She took lessons from Nannie Jamieson, Malcolm Layfield and Richard Deakin who Caroline then continued to study with at the Royal Northern College of Music. Throughout her time in Manchester, Caroline took the opportunity to lead a number of orchestras and perform chamber music.
Since moving to Bedfordshire, Caroline and her husband, Justin, have given a number of recitals locally and, for the last 20 years, Caroline has enjoyed being a part of the Kaznowski String Quartet.
Orchestral playing has involved tours to Italy, France and the Channel Islands; Caroline
plays with orchestras based in Milton Keynes, Bedford and the London-
Caroline plays on a violin specially commissioned and made for her in 2002 by Tomáš Pilaŕ.
Currently, Caroline works for Bedfordshire music, teaching the violin and viola, hoping to inspire youngsters and impart some of her love of playing to others.
John Shayler was Head of String Instrument Teaching for Bedfordshire Music Service
until his retirement in 2002. John’s musical life began with violin lessons at Bedford
School. While studying sociology at Sussex University, he had lessons at the Guildhall
School of Music with Joan Spencer, who persuaded him to do a postgraduate year full-
John’s association with Bedfordshire Youth Music began in 1968, when he led the then new County Youth Orchestra, before becoming coach to the violins. After the Guildhall the then new Music Advisor, Michael Rose, offered John a violin teaching job with the Authority, and after a year John became Head of String Instrument Teaching, a post he held until 2002.
John co-
As well as his association with Bedfordshire, John is International Liaison Officer of the European String Teachers’ Association, having been a member of the Management Committee for many years.
Martin Hughes studied violin at the Royal College of Music, London, and won all the major violin prizes. He made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1974 to critical acclaim, and has appeared throughout the UK, in Europe, and in Japan as recitalist and concerto player. Martin spent twenty two years with the Northern Sinfonia in Newcastle upon Tyne as section principal and subsequently Associate Leader.
In 1998 Martin was appointed Head of Strings at the RSAMD in Glasgow. After five productive and successful years in Glasgow he returned to England and was appointed to the position of Head of Strings at Bedford School in April 2003. In Bedford he has performed with the harpsichordist Richard Egarr.
He took part in the 2005 BBC1 TV “Imagine” programme, ‘Elgar and the Lost Piano Concerto’,
performing part of the Piano Quintet, and made a further TV appearance on Channel
4 in Howard Goodall’s series, “How Music Works” with colleagues from the Academy
of St Martin-