Today’s programme includes works by British flautist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mower, founder of Itchy Fingers, the internationally renowned saxophone quartet, alongside pieces by Debussy and Prokofiev.

Daisy Noton is a flautist with a wealth of solo, chamber and orchestral playing experience who has given recitals at venues across the UK, including Glyndebourne. She’s performed concertos with orchestras including the Aarhus Symfoniorkester, London Mozart Players and ULSO. A keen chamber musician, Daisy continues to perform in various concerts with her harp trio, the ‘Orion Trio’. She was excited to make her Wigmore debut, playing side-by-side with the Nash Ensemble in 2024.

Daisy has a keen interest in contemporary music. She was a soloist with the Riot Ensemble in Shin Kim’s Flute and Harp Concerto, which was premiered and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In May 2025, she performed with the Riot Ensemble at the Ernst von Siemens Award Ceremony in Munich.

Daisy plays with orchestras including the Ulster Orchestra, Sinfonia Cymru, and Sinfonia Smith Square. She is delighted to be on the Philharmonia Instrumental Fellowship Scheme this year. Last year, she was on the Ulster Orchestra Professional Experience Scheme. This summer she is taking part in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Orchestral Residency. She’s previously performed as principal flute of the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra and University of London Symphony Orchestra (ULSO).

In 2020, Daisy was a BBC Young Musician woodwind finalist. Other accolades include winning a Yamaha Music Foundation Flute Scholarship, winning the Altus William Bennet Flute Prize and Alexander & Buono International Flute Competition.

Daisy currently studies with Jacques Zoon and Salvador Martínez Tos at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. She graduated with a first class degree from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was also awarded Her Royal Highness Princess Alice’s Prize and the Irene Burcher award for the highest final recital woodwind mark. She studied with Karen Jones, Michael Cox, Robert Looman, Helen Keen and Patricia Morris.

Helen Ridout studied piano, oboe and saxophone at Chethams School of Music and later specialised in collaborative piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Her diverse musical career has spanned playing for major ballet companies, touring with Classical Cabaret to playing tenor sax with the Fairer Sax at the Edinburgh Festival. For many years she was pianist with the Olyver Gypsy Orchestra, with whom she recorded two CDs and performed at venues including St.Martin-in-the-Fields, Snape Maltings and the Barbican.

More recent projects include: Repetiteur for ‘Push’- a community opera by Howard Moody, pianist for Barefoot Opera, pianist for ‘Mozart in Russia’ at the Kino-Teatr, director and pianist for ‘Peter and the Wolf’; and MD for ‘Paris Snow’ a musical premiered in March 2017. She developed a series of Coffee Concerts and enjoyed collaborations with performers including James Newby, Wissam Boustany, Louise Winter, John Twitchen, Becca Leggett and Chiara Vinci. Helen is in demand as a pianist and teacher throughout Sussex and the South East and regularly works with conductor Marcio Da Silva for Hastings Philharmonic Choir, Billingshurst Choral Society and Ensemble OrQuesta.