I have been playing violin since the age of 7, and have always preferred to play with groups and orchestras. After gaining a healthy general musical education at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh for 5 years, I fully focused my playing on the violin, and after studying with Rosemary Ellison was accepted on to the BMus course at The University of Glasgow. There I studied with Ruth Slater and then Kristin Deeken, expanding my violin playing into historical performance, and gaining a much broader knowledge of my own instrument in general. During these years I played consistently in the front desks of The Kelvin Ensemble with conductors Oliver Rundell, Chris Gray, and Chris Swaffer, and took part in the Universities of Scotland Symphony Orchestra tours, this year on Seat 3, playing Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. During my third year of university I was approached by, and joined, Scottish Opera’s Connect Company. My first engagement strongly tested my sight-reading abilities – having been told I was playing in the 1sts, a few days before rehearsals the 2nds leader became ill, so I was asked to jump in at the last minute. This led to a more permanent role there, leading the 2nds again during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme’s Anamchara – Songs of Friendship, which whetted my appetite for true pit work, as it took place in the Theatre Royal. This relationship with Connect continued into the 2014-15 season, with me leading the Connect Orchestra during the side-by-side production with the main orchestra, sitting alongside Katie Hull and under the baton of Christopher Adey. I also led the company’s production of Dr Ferret’s Bad Medicine Roadshow, and was one of the on-stage quartet for Jonathan Dove’s The Walk from the Garden. I am still playing with Connect this season, having recently led the 2nds again during our most recent performance, which included Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and am looking forward to leading again in the New Year. I have worked with singers many times, and not just with Connect. Earlier this year I was the 1st violin for Titanic – A New Musical, which not only gave me experience of quickly changing to different singers’ needs, but also how to deal with a bad pit situation – our string quartet was placed in such a way that contact with the director was impossible, so we had to make do with a lagging video feed and monitors. Whilst nowhere near an ideal situation, I made sure that we made the most of it, and worked out what best to rely on in order to play correctly with the rest of the band. During my University course, I had the opportunity to perform alongside a number of singers, with extracts from Fauré’s Requiem, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and a performance of Vivaldi’s Magnificat with Glasgow Pro Musica and the University Chapel Choir.