As an avid player of all flutes from renaissance all the way through to modern flute, London-based Beth Stone enjoys a colourful career performing in many different settings in the UK and Europe. She has had the pleasure of working with a variety of orchestras including the Academy of Ancient Music; Irish Baroque Orchestra; Ex-Cathedra; The Sixteen; Armonico Consort; London Handel Players; Cambridge Handel Opera Company; among many others. Her playing can also be heard on recordings with the Taverner Consort and the Academy of Ancient Music. Beth’s radio debut took place in Germany for WDR3 and she has recorded albums with Lumas Winds for Champs Hill and Flutes & Frets Duo for EM Records. She has won several prizes in competitions including the 2023 International H.I.F. Biber Competition; 2022 Royal Overseas League Competition; and the Telemann Fantasia Recording Competition 2021.
Chamber music has always been a central part of Beth’s music making. She has performed with several chamber groups, and now primarily, the award-winning Flutes & Frets Duo and Lumas Winds which have enabled her to perform in many festivals, concerts, competitions and events. Supported by schemes and trusts including The Munster Trust; Kirckman Concerts; Making Music, Tunnell Trust and the European Festivals Association she has had the opportunity to tour all over the UK and Europe.
Beth spent seven years studying at Chetham’s School of Music from age eleven, taking an interest in historical flutes in her final two years there. As an Ian Evans Lombe Scholar, she graduated from the Royal College of Music with a first class honours in 2022, where she studied modern flute with Gitte Marcusson and historical flutes with Rachel Brown as part of the joint principal course, winning the RCM McKenna Prize for the highest end-of-year recital mark in a baroque instrument.
Q&A
Growing up in Glasgow under the tutelage of Stephen West, Chris Vettraino was a member of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland, the National Children’s Orchestras of Great Britain, and the National Youth Orchestra. He attended the International Oboe Course of Corfu in 2017 and 2018 studying with Thomas Indermuhle and Spyros Kontos and in 2018, was awarded a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. During his time there he played principal oboe with all of the Academy’s major orchestras and won both the Academy’s Oboe Prize and Cor Anglais Prize. In July 2022, he graduated with First Class Honours.
Chris has played with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra. He has worked with esteemed conductors such as Sir Mark Elder, John Wilson, Alpesh Chauhan, Jessica Cottis, Ilan Volkov, Sir George Benjamin, Elim Chan, Thomas Ades, Ryan Wigglesworth, and Marin Alsop.
Chris made his concerto debut aged 14 with the Junior Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Symphony Orchestra and went on to perform as soloist with the West of Scotland Schools Symphony Orchestra, before returning to JRCS to perform the Strauss Oboe Concerto in his last year there. He gave his first London concerto performance alongside the Campanella Orchestra in July 2021, and performed the Mozart Oboe Concerto with the London Mozart Players in January 2023.
Q&A
Any pre-concert rituals?
I always try to be relaxed and cool (temperature not swag) as possible. Going to the toilet around ten minutes before the concert starts and having a cold towel and a drink of water nearby usually does the trick
What’s your favourite piece to play with Lumas and why?
I’m extremely fond of the Mozart Divertimento no.8 that has been in our repertoire for a long time. It doesn’t have any complex counting or rhythmic chaos or crunchy chords that never sound in tune. It’s simple, melodic music, and I feel really bonded as a group when we play it.
Who brings the humour to Lumas rehearsals?
Flo and Rennie tend to be constantly laughing at in-jokes and Rennie and I spend a lot of time quoting Aunty Donna, but Johan cracks us all up with his sporadic and random outbursts. Beth likes to make blooper videos after we record and she gets her chance to mock us with the editing!
What’s on repeat in your Spotify?
Everything Everything, Lizzy McAlpine, and Bo Burnham.
When it comes to classical music it tends to be playlists I’ve made of music I need to study for concerts/recitals/auditions.
Biggest bucket list item?
Call me a dreamer but I’d love to play a concerto at the BBC Proms.
Favourite book?
‘Everyone you hate is going to die’ – by Daniel Sloss
After beginning his musical journey as a cornet player in Greater Manchester, Benjamin Hartnell-Booth is currently a freelance horn player based in London. Benjamin studied horn playing at the Royal Academy of Music with the generous support of the Countess of Munster Trust and Pendle Young Musician and graduated in 2022. As well as graduating with distinction, Benjamin was awarded an additional diploma for an ‘Outstanding Final Recital’ in which he performed works by Poulenc, Messiaen and Britten.
Since then, Benjamin has focused primarily on orchestral playing, performing as Guest Principal with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the BBC Philharmonic, Opera North, Scottish Opera, the Royal National Scottish Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra Ireland among others. He has in particular enjoyed his operatic work, performing Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Tristan und Isolde at Grange Park Opera, Puccini’s La Boheme with the Glyndebourne Touring Orchestra, Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen with Opera North, Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte with Welsh National Opera and Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretal and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at the Chateau de Panloy.
Benjamin has also performed a great deal of chamber music over the years; he recently performed Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in London with Westminster Opera Company, performed pieces such as Beethoven’s Septet and Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel – Einmal Anders at the Peasmarsh Festival 2025, and was a featured artist at the Corbridge Music Festival 2025 in which he performed the Brahms Horn Trio, Strauss’ Andante for Horn and Piano, Gavin Higgins’ Fanfare, Air and Flourishes, and Jorg Widmann’s Air for Solo Horn.
Q&A
Favourite piece to play with Lumas & why?
I think it has to be Lalo Schifrin’s Nouvelle Orleans, aside from the fact that every time we play it from now on it will remind me of the first time I ever played at the Wigmore, it is also just a really fun piece of music which we can have a lot of fun with. It’s great to really ham up the jazz and see just how many note bends, glisses and funky rhythms I can make before anyone notices!
If you could learn another instrument?
For me it’s always going to be piano – I love the horn but it can be quite frustrating practising a part and only hearing a single line from what should be a really rich soundscape. With the piano, I could sit down and play a complete piece of music just for myself without having to imagine all the other sounds I should be hearing.
What made you want to pursue music?
I originally studied history, but about half way through my course I realised that I was spending as much time practising, rehearsing and performing as I was studying for my degree. So I asked myself if there was any real reason why I shouldn’t see if I could make a go of it and came up short. In any case, I was hardly going to do history for the rest of my life, there’s no future in it…
What’s your dream 3 course meal?
Now, this a tough question. I think I would have to go with a French meal, perhaps a light starter of some paté with a nice bread and some Languedoc red wine, followed by moules mariniéres et frite paired with a light white burgundy. To finish, I think a fairly tart fruit sorbet and a glass of dessert wine would probably round the meal off nicely.
Any hidden talents?
I am surprisingly flexible and am currently undefeated in the limbo arena.
Favourite Book?
I don’t think I have a single favourite book, I tend to enjoy the bizarre and slightly satirical, so things like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series definitely make the list. I have also read some really fascinating history books recently and would highly recommend Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads for an epic history or MIchael Pye’s The Edge of the World for a more revisionist approach to progress in Europe in the pre-modern era.
Florence Plane is a Welsh freelance bassoonist based in London. She enjoys a varied career of chamber and orchestral playing, and is a founder member of Lumas Winds.
A passionate chamber musician, Flo has performed at a variety of chamber music festivals across the UK, including Schubert Octet with the Brodsky Quartet at the Dante Festival in Cornwall, Beethoven’s Septet at the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival, Brahms’s Serenade for Nonet at the Penarth Chamber Music Festival and Huw Watkins’s ‘Broken Consort’ at the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival. She featured at the Oxford Lieder Festival 2021 with acclaimed soprano Sophie Bevan and appears regularly with Sheffield-based Ensemble360, presenting Strauss’ Til Eulenspiegel for quintet, Ligeti’s Ten Pieces, and Mozart’s Gran Partita.
Flo has performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gävle Symfoniorkester on their tour of the UK, and NSO Dublin and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, where she held trial positions. She was a member of the Chipping Campden Festival Academy Orchestra, performing in their May festival in 2024, and recently joined the LPO Foyle Future Firsts scheme for 2025/26.
She has made the world premiere recording of Pamela Harrison’s ‘Faggot Dance’, which was released as part of a survey of this neglected composer’s chamber music for Resonus Classics on International Women’s Day in 2023, with which she made her German radio debut for WDR3. She also features on a disc exploring Stravinsky’s chamber works under Linn Records with the Royal Academy Soloists Ensemble.
At age 16 she took up a place at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and was awarded a full scholarship to support her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, with her further studies supported by the Countess of Munster Trust. She continued her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin with Volker Tessmann, supported by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).
Q&A
What’s on repeat in your Spotify?
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly, Erykah Badu Mama’s Gun, London Winds Schubert Octet
Supermarket brand of choice?
Morrison’s
Any hidden talents/skills?
Making macrame plant hangers, and hand poked tattoos.
What’s your favourite piece to play with Lumas and why?
Elizabeth Maconchy Wind Quintet – it has lots of beautiful moments with everyone playing together, but it also shows off the instruments individually with cadenzas for each instrument.
Favourite place to perform?
The Music Room at Champs Hill
Give us an insight into what it’s like to play with Lumas…
Rehearsals with Lumas are very intense and focused… with the odd interruption filled with laughter, memes and improvising.
Rennie Sutherland studied clarinet at the Music School of Douglas Academy in Glasgow from the age of 11, a highlight of his time there was participating in a series of chamber music concerts for Live Music Now. He was also a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
He went on to study at the Royal College of Music in London where he gained both a Bachelors in Music and Masters in Performance under the tutelage of Tim Lines and Richard Hosford. During his time at RCM he played in all their primary orchestras and ensembles working with conductors such as Rafael Payare, Vasily Petrenko, and Andrew Davies as well as recording in Abbey Road Studios. Following his studies he was a member of the Chipping Campden Festival Academy Orchestra for 2025.
Rennie now regularly freelances in the UK and has performed with Chromatica (formerly Bath Festival) Orchestra, London Mozart Players, and the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.
As a passionate chamber musician Rennie is a founding and current member of Lumas Winds; winners of the 71st Royal Over-Seas League, they have featured as ‘young artists’ for Britten-Pears, Countess of Munster Trust, Kirckman Concerts Society, Making Music, and Tunnell Trust. Their debut album for Champs Hill Records released in 2024 to great acclaim. Rennie was also a founding member of the contemporary focused ensemble Mad Song, with whom he was an Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt, Germany) ‘International Academist’ in 2024.
Q&A:
What made you want to pursue music?
Being able to perform is just an absolute joy most of the time. I feel very comfortable on stage (again, most of the time) and there’s something about sharing music for a living that ticks all the boxes.
Any advice that’s always stuck with you?
The harpsichordist Jean Rondeau talked about the timeline of a piece in a masterclass I was lucky enough to watch. Something along the lines of – the music we perform sits upon a timeline, and throughout that timeline we might have a few concerts, an exam, etc. but all the while the music trots along changing and growing, so a performance is simply a sharing of the snippet of the timeline. How lovely is that!
Any pre-concert rituals?
I try to avoid those to be honest! But having said that, I ALWAYS have to brush my teeth…
Favourite Book?
Albert Camus ‘The Outsider’ – pretty intense I know! There’s just so many incredible things packed into it and I consistently find myself pondering about its contents.
If you could learn another instrument, what would it be?
I suppose bagpipes is one that I feel I really should learn… On the classical side however, I’m always jealous of cellists so, I’ll go with cello.
What would you be doing if you weren’t a musician
Buying houses, renovating them, selling them on. I just love the idea – despite having absolutely zero experience whatsoever in any of the relevant trades!