Performer Biographies

Tabitha enjoys a busy freelance life as a cellist. As an orchestral musician she has worked with Welsh National Opera, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and is a regular extra player with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She has performed solo twice for HM King Charles, enjoyed multiple TV appearances with BBC and S4C, and played for several film and television soundtracks. Tabitha is a founding member of Quartet Draig, a Welsh string quartet with whom she has performed at the Wigmore Hall. Equally dedicated to inspiring the next generation of young musicians, Tabitha has a busy private teaching practice and is a teacher, orchestral tutor and conductor at ‘Cardiff and Vale Music Education’. Tabitha holds a Bachelor's degree, two Master's degrees and an international PGCE specialising in whole class teaching. Outside of music Tabitha has a keen interest in literature and is passionate about veganism.

Cheryl is a Part-Time Lecturer in Piano at the University of Southampton. She holds degrees from the University of Oxford, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and Cornell University. Her doctoral dissertation, completed at Cornell, explored postclassical pianism of the 1830s, focusing on the role of concert variations in the life of young Clara Wieck(-Schumann). Cheryl has delivered recitals and lecture-recitals on both modern pianos and fortepianos, and presented at international conferences. In her research on lost pianistic traditions and the works of women composers, she seeks to integrate her experiences as a pianist and scholar, illuminating scholarship through practice and vice versa. Cheryl has published in Nineteenth-Century Music Review, and her research has been supported by fellowships and grants at Cornell University, where she was also a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Theory and Piano.

Tabitha Selley

Cheryl Tan