Clare started learning the piano at the age of four and the flute when she was ten. Her early musical performance experience though was as a percussionist in the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra. She went on to study flute and piano at Trinity College of Music and was twice awarded the Charles Sparrow Simpson scholarship. She enjoyed many years playing the flute, piccolo and alto flute professionally throughout London and the south east, including working with Opera East, in a variety of musicals and shows, in the Cambridge Sinfonia and as a member of the contemporary music group Collective Title. She played for many years in the Hatfield Philharmonic Orchestra. She was involved in the opening and early days of the now very well-established flute shop, Just Flutes.
Until August 2021 Clare was Local Area Representative for Trinity College London, the music examinations board. She was responsible for over 600 candidates’ entries for Classical & Jazz and Rock & Pop exams per year in Bishop’s Stortford & Sawbridgeworth, Hertford and Broxbourne.
Keen to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother Mrs Eva Roberts, who was a piano and theory teacher in Lincoln, Clare sat the Trinity College Grade 8 Theory exam in May 2017. She passed with distinction and in the process raised over £700 for The Multiple Sclerosis Society and Mind, the mental health charity. You can see Eva's exam details from 1944 on the left! Clare has a musical family, with other members singing, playing the violin, piano, cello, tuba, drums and recently the Scottish Smallpipes.
Clare is also the author of the book
KW PADLEY FBIPP, FRPS, FRSA. Naturalist, Photographer and Wildlife Artist. A close-up perspective of his life and works.
Available from contact@kennethpadleyart.com
See also www.kennethpadleyart.com for more details.
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