MEET  THE  ORCHESTRA

Click on the profiles below to find out more about some of the members of NLS

Owen  Leech - conductor

We have been fortunate to have Owen Leech as conductor and musical director of the North London Sinfonia, formerly the Tudor Orchestra, since December 2005.  Owen's knowledge, enthusiasm and encouragement ensures we progress, both as individual players and as an ensemble, each term.

Carolyn Franks - leader

Carolyn studied the violin at the Royal College of Music. She joined the Royal Northern Sinfonia of England and enjoyed playing chamber orchestra repertoire. She then joined the Royal Opera House Orchestra first violin section. Since leaving she played regularly with many London Orchestras including the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, New London Orchestra. Carolyn has had the opportunity to travel all over the world and play in many beautiful venues. She is also a qualified teacher for Colourstrings and has been part of education teams delivering music based workshops in schools all over London.

MarinA COMAS CASTIÑEIRA - principal  cello

Born in Barcelona, Marina began her musical studies in Mexico City, where her family lived for a number of years. Back in Spain, she studied with Peter Thiemann before taking up a scholarship, in 1997, to enter János Starker’s internationally renowned cello program at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, where she was a pupil of Helga Winold and Emilio Colón. Having received the prestigious Pau Casals scholarship she then went on to study with the distinguished soloist Lynn Harrell at Rice University in Houston, graduating with a Master’s degree in 2005. She has taken lessons with Starker himself, and participated in masterclasses with Siegfried Palm, Lluis Claret and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, amongst others. She has appeared as a soloist on many occasions, making her debut with orchestra at the age of fifteen with the Yekaterinburg Chamber Orchestra. She has also played concertos with the Barcelona Sinfonietta and Camerata XXI, and in 2010 played the Dvořák Concerto with the North London Sinfonia. At the moment she enjoys a freelance career both as a chamber and orchestral musician, having played in orchestras such as the Orquestra del Palau de les Arts in Valencia, the Orquestra del Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in the UK. Since moving to London, Marina has focused largely on performing chamber music and teaching. She is a specialist in the Kodály based Colourstrings method and has been teaching at the North London Conservatoire since 2012.