SWeet! People

Netty Rhodes, MMus (RCM)

Founding Director & Project Coordinator

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Netty undertook social work before turning a passion for the recorder into a career. She obtained a Masters degree in Recorder Performance from the Royal College of Music in 2005, studying with Ashley Solomon (Baroque), Julien Feltrin (modern) and Jeremy West (17th Century).

As a professional recorder player, Netty has worked throughout London and the South East, both as a soloist and as a member of ensembles My Lady's Chamber and Mosaic Recorder Consort.

Netty founded SWeet! after realising the hunger for good quality recorder tuition at her daughters' school, coupled with a growing number of students whose families simply could not afford instrumental music lessons.

She believes the humble mis-understood and undervalued recorder can be a powerful tool for building community, developing self-confidence and creating a sense of individual and communal pride.

She is privileged to work with SWeet!'s talented, focused, resourceful, resilient and team-orientated young people.

Louise Salewski BSc (Hons) PGCE

Director & Adviser on Child Safeguarding

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It is a pleasure to be able to be on the Board of SWeet! Recorder Consort CIC. I have been the headteacher of Streatham Wells Community Primary School for over five years and have observed the benefits of children experiencing the highest quality of music tuition from SWeet!.

Children learn to play the recorder to a high standard, passing graded exams and receiving acclaim at national competitions. I have seen first hand the impact that playing a musical instrument has on children that may have had a difficult start to their lives. Playing the recorder as part of a group leads to raised self esteem, confidence and ability to believe in themselves.

I am honored to be able to play a small part in helping SWeet! be a success.

Laurie Howard, BA (Hons)

Director & Adviser on Fundraising

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Laurie is the Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Holiday Fund, vice chair of Streatham Wells PTA and is mum to two girls, both SWeet students, aged 9 and 10. She lives in Brixton, London.

Andrew Collis

Director and Advisor on Fundraising

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Andrew is a freelance musician speacialising in performing both Early and modern/contemporary recorder repertoire. He has been an educator in London schools, Saturday music centres and for Adult Education. He is in demand as a workshop leader, course tutor and conductor around the country. As a Trinity examiner and music adjudicator he has worked in different parts of the world as well as here in the UK. Andrew has been a valued member of both recorder and brass band committees on a local and national level.

As chairman of the Walter Bergmann Fund he supported many young recorder players in their musical endeavours. He was also organisor of the Moeck/SRP Recorder Competition.

Julie Dean

Tutor

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Julie Dean gained her BMus degree in 1998 at Goldsmith College, London. In 2006, after a successful management career in retail and the licensed trade, she returned to music attending Trinity Conservatoire of Music. She spent four years as a postgraduate studying the recorder with Rebecca Miles and Philip Thorby as well as Viola da Gamba with Alison Crum. Julie has had recorder tuition, courses and masterclasses with Piers Adams, Pamela Thorby, Matthias Maute and Bart Spanhove. Julie is also interested in playing middle eastern percussion instruments. For a personal project she is researching the effects of hearing loss in musicians.

As a recorder player her past performances have included the Greenwich International Early Music Festival, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Handel House Museum, Southbank Centre, London Mozart Players, The Exmoor Singers of London and historical dance group The Renaissance Footnotes. She was a winner of the Trinity College of Music Early Music Competition in 2011 with Ensemble Tramontana, performing with the group at the Greenwich International Early Music Festival 2011. She performs regularly with the comedy and jazz influenced BRLO 'British Recorder Light Orchestra', Belsize Baroque Orchestra as well as many solo and ensemble performances.

Julie works actively with children and adult amateur recorder players, directs several weekly groups, offers individual tuition and conducts for the Society of Recorder Players. She teaches on the Easter Recorder Course in Derbyshire, Summer Recorder Festival in Cheltenham and NOVIS. She was also invited by the Société des Amis de Arnold Dolmetsch to teach amateur recorder players from across Europe in a workshop in Le Mans, France. One of the few UK teachers of the Suzuki method for the recorder for early years children, Julie has been a guest Suzuki teacher at a music school in Germany. She published 4 well researched volumes of 'Rounds for Recorders' aimed at adult recorder players and has also published a mini guidebook 'Looking after your wooden recorder'. www.recordergroupslondon.co.uk.

Julie also runs her online recorder shop, RecorderShopLondon.co.uk and has repaired and revoiced recorders for over 10 years. She has received training and guidance from recorder makers Tim Cranmore and Tom Prescott. She regularly delivers a presentation to help recorder players understand recorder maintenance and revoicing, including at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Birmingham conservatoire, and Encontro de Música Antiga de Loulé, Portugal. Julie is a professional member of NAMIR (National Association of Musical Instrument Repairers

Alex Fowles

Financial Support

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Alex is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years' experience working in senior finance roles across a variety of industries, including telecoms, recruitment, advertising and electric vehicles.

For the past seven years, he has specialised in the charity sector holding Finance Director roles at YoungMinds, the British Lung Foundation and Power to Change.

Alex is also a Governor and Chair of the Audit Committee at the National College Creative Industries.

While he can't convince everyone that finance is fun and exciting, he is committed to making it less scary for those he works with!

Amanda Purchase RIP

Photographer in Residence

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SWeet! continues to mourn the sad loss in 2023 of Amanda Purchase, who took many of the beautiful photographs you are enjoying on this website. Her motto was “preserve smiles for a lifetime” and we are certainly beneficiaries of that!

The legacy of Amanda’s generous spirit and warm heart will always be felt by the SWeet! students & staff she worked with, and by all those who view her wonderful photos, for many lifetimes to come.

Thanks for everything and
RIP Amanda

Robin Bigwood

Audio-Visual Producer

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Robin has been a musician and technology nerd for as long as anyone can remember. For Sweet he has edited several video and audio-based projects including their brilliant lockdown version of Radiohead’s No Surprises. At other times you might either find him on the concert stage playing harpsichord, organ or piano with groups like La Serenissima and London Chamber Orchestra. Or in the studio recording using synthesizers and computers, working for publishers like Boosey and Hawkes or ABRSM, making musical films and documentaries, and producing albums by other musicians. Robin hasn’t played recorder himself since primary school but is a huge fan of the instrument, and feels especially privileged to work with the hugely talented members of SWeet.

Bobbie Field

Audio Producer & Editor

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Primarily a composer, Bobbie has been in the music business for over 35 years, and has worked primarily with BBC Orchestras, and on Friday Night is Music Night (BBC Radio Two); but also with the Philharmonia and the Royal Philharmonic. She has arranged for artistes such as Peter Skellern, Gerard Kenny, Claire Sweeney, Ruthie Henshall, Hayley Westenra, Jimmy Osmond and Sir Willard White.

Other clients include DECCA/Universal and the Academy of Ancient Music when they require services such as typesetting, transposing, printing. Bobbie also looks after orchestral music for comedian/conductor Rainer Hersch, after having done similar work with the BBC Concert Orchestra. She currently runs a Choir and Worship Team in a local church.

For over twenty years Bobbie has been Musical Director for the award winning British Airways Cabin Crew Entertainment Society's (BACCES) annual pantomime. Part of her role involved conducting members of the London Symphony Orchestra while recording backing tracks at Angel Studios, and recording vocal tracks with members of BACCES in her home studio, work which allowed Bobbie to hone her recording and editing skills!

So when approached by Netty to record for SWeet! she was delighted to do so. She wishes them all the very best for their future in music making!

Mo Suet Ng

Resident Accompanist

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Mo Suet NG is a Hong Kong-born pianist, organist and composer. She is currently the music director of St Agnes Church Kennington Park, co-founder of Hong Kong Choral Music Academy, organist of Presbyterian Church Anointed Congregation, and pianist of SWeet Recorder Consort CIC.

In 2021-22, she made her debut in Cambridge, Oxford, London and Freiburg. She involved actively in music festivals, including the Collaborative Piano Institute, Lied-Campus an der Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and American Guild of Organist Dallas Chapter.

As a holder of Guildhall Financial Award, Ng just completed Master of Performance in Piano Accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying with Pamela Lidiard, Carole Presland and Helen Cha. She is the keyboardist of Guildhall Symphony Orchestra and Ubu Ensemble and works intensively with Graham Johnson, Roderick Williams, Julia Bullock and Eugene Asti.

She was the research assistant of Professor Helan Yang in the Hong Kong Baptist University. As a composer, her string quartet “Dance of Pear Blossoms” was premiered by Cong Quartet, and she was the champion of International Music Talent Competition in composing for solo instrument.