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Bonnie Ralph began composing when she ceased gainful employment at the age of 52. She had done no music previously. In the intervening 6 years, she has worked to overcome the inevitable shortcomings this late start created for her, and successfully completed her MMus in composition two and a half years ago, at the age of 55.

She has had works for string quartet, for piano and for small ensemble performed, and has had a song performed at the Bath Festival of Poetry and Song. Most of her current output is directed at the needs of the small folk choir at her church.

Joe has had a long career in computer software engineering (BSc Econ. 1963, MSc Comp.Sci 1972) and started composition in 1997 (B.Mus. 2001), much encouraged by regular attendance at Canford. He is a singer and leans to vocal composition (song cycles with piano '3 songs of Norman MacCaig ' 2000, 'Bird Parade' 2002, with 7 piece orchestra 'The Year of the Green Parrots' 2002, opera with 15 piece orchestra 'Spem' (2003). He is currently working on a new English translation of 'Cosi Fan Tutte' for Starlight Opera UK, which he will be directing in 2003, and contemplating starting work on his second opera.

Joanna Treasure was born in 1961, the youngest of nine children, and was surrounded by music-making from infancy. She studied piano, French horn and singing, both solo and a capella. Her compositional talent was recognised in 1975 at Cheltenham Ladies' College when she won first prize for her SATB setting of Solomon Grundy. She went on to study medicine at Cambridge and Guy's Hospital and has continued to juggle her musical development with a demanding career in Pathology.

She is a regular participant in the Canford Composers' Workshop, where she studies with Malcolm Singer, and is a composer/performer member of COMA. Jo's music is essentially melodic and expressive. Her vocal writing shows great sensitivity to text, whether it is a setting of Latin or her own words. Pieces often grow from the need to return to and explore the experience of quite transient moments. Her music can savour a sense of stillness, rigorously analyse a recurring pattern, or unfold a glimpse of ecstasy.

Jo is married with two sons and lives in Lancashire. Home Tel: 01257 464320

Tapio Tuomela (b. October 11, 1958 at Kuusamo, Finland ) attended the Sibelius Academy, where he studied the piano with Tapani Valsta (diploma in 1982), conducting with Jorma Panula (diploma in 1987) and composition with Einar Englund, Eero Hämeenniemi, Magnus Lindberg and Paavo Heininen. He supplemented his piano and conducting studies at the Conservatory of Lithuania in Vilnius from 1983 to 1985 and his studies of composition in 1988-1989 with Christopher Rouse and Joseph Schwantner at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. (taking the Master of Music degree there in 1990) and in 1989-1991 with Witold Szalonek at West Berlin's Hochschule der Künste. He has also attended courses by Witold Lutoslawski, George Crumb, Klaus Huber, Brian Ferneyhough and the stage of IRCAM.

Tuomela's works have been performed at several festivals like World Music Days, Scandinavia Today, North&South Consonance, Moscow Forum, Gulbenkian Festival, Festival d'Ile de France, Icebreakers, Novi Sad, Velenje, Randspiele, Nordic Music Days, Young Nordic Music, Myrkir Musikdagar, Tampere Biennale, Time of Music and Avanti! Summer Sounds Festival. His compositions have also been performed by several orchestras in Finland, France and Germany. Tuomela has received commissions by The Finnish National Opera, Finnish RSO, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Orkester Norden, Finnish Radio Chamber Choir, Joensuu Orchestra, Ensemble Musicatreize, Lappish Chamber Orchestra, OrchestraUtopica (Portugal), among others.

Tuomela is also active as a conductor: he has conducted performances at the Finnish National Opera and worked with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and other orchestras/ensembles in all Scandinavian countries, Germany, and Spain. Tuomela has premiered a great deal of new music and recorded the "Maa" by Kaija Saariaho (Ondine ODE 791-2), early compositions for strings by Jean Sibelius, and a CD of his own music (JaseCD 0031).

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Mercedes Zavala was born in Madrid 1963. She studied Piano and Composition at the Madrid Music Conservatoire, subjects which she studied further with various teachers, especially in the fields of performance of 20th century piano music, teaching and composition. In the last of these subjects she has been a pupil of Malcolm Singer.

She teachs from 1990 at the Madrid Music Conservatoire "Teresa Berganza". 1990 is also the year which she begins to experiment with some theatrical, visual, gestual and even sociological aspects of music, composing and playing in Grupo Secuencia and as a solo player. In 1996 she travelled to Senegal to study drumming with family N´diaye (Louga, Cercle de la Jeunesse). In 1997 she graduated in Philosophy and now is searching in Aesthetic at the University.

As a composer she has premiered her works in Spain, England, Italy, Neetherlands, France, Germany, Austria and EEUU. Some of her last pieces are "El Hilo y la Trama" (27 Flutes orchestra), "Seis propuestas para el próximo milenio" ("Six memos for next milenium", for 3 marimbas and vibrafon, según la obra de Italo Calvino), and "La apoteosis nocturna de Andoar" (fl,cl,vl,vc,p y perc).