Angela Purll
MMus PgDip BMus (Hons) LTCL ATCL

Angela received her secondary education in 1993 at Dorton House School for the Blind in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she began learning the organ with Chris Lockyer, piano and Braille music with the late Jill Smith. In 1997, she moved to the RNIB New College in Worcester to study Music Art and English at A-Level, and where she continued her organ studies with Trevor Tipple and flute with Sarah Johnson. Additional musical involvement included wind band, handbell group, chapel choir, recorder consort, steel band, and in 1998, played first flute in Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Little Suite no. 2 conducted by Sir Simon Rattle for Record Breakers World’s Largest Orchestra (3,503 musicians) at the National Indoor Arena, Birmingham.

In 1999, Angela began studying at Trinity College of Music, London, studying organ under Dr. John Winter and flute under Anna Noakes. After graduating in 2003 with a Bachelor of Music Degree and a Licenciate in Vocal/Instrumental Teaching, Angela continued with a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance studying organ under Roger Sayer of Rochester Cathedral and Ian Curror of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, and in 2007, she was awarded an Associateship of Trinity College London with Distinction for flute performance. In 2008, Angela was awarded the Webster Davidson Scholarship to study a Masters Degree in Music Performance at Trinity, which she completed with Merit in 2011. She was awarded the Cardnell Organ Prize in 2010, and has also been generously granted Bursaries by the Hever Parish Church Council, Costcutter Supermarkets Group, the Great Stone Bridge Trust, and the Dorothy Hay-Bolton Trust.

Since losing her sight aged thirteen following an accident, Angela learns the majority of her music from Braille, and performs entirely from memory. Notable performances have included those at the Royal Albert Hall, Goldsmith’s Hall, St. James’ Palace,; in December 2010 for the launch of Prima Vista Braille Music Services with composer Christopher Norton at Schott Publishers in London, and in December 2011 for the Louis Braille Association in Tetouan, Morocco. She has participated in three concerts at the Royal Festival Hall under the direction of Richard Stilgoe, including a performance of Holst’s ‘The Planets Suite’ with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002. Other notable performances include those for the seventy fifth anniversary of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in 2006, and for the charity Changing Lives in 2007.

In 2003, Angela took the position of flute teacher at Hildenborough Church of England Primary School, and in 2011, at Sackville School also in Hildenborough, Kent. She is a freelance Braille music instructor, and in 2009, founded the Braille Music Chat emailing forum, intended as a facility for use by both sighted and non-sighted people worldwide who are involved in any way with Braille music. In 2008, Angela formed the Round House Folk band, in which she plays flutes and piano-accordion, who perform a variety of traditional tunes and songs, and who play regularly at local folk sessions and for other public and private functions. Angela currently holds appointments as organist at St. Peter’s church in Hever, and St. Paul’s church in Four Elms, Kent. She has just recorded her first CD Reawakening: Original Works for Flute and Organ in collaboration with Chris Lockyer, including many premier recordings, and those performed from composers’ hand written manuscripts, and is an ongoing project into the revival of original repertoire for flute and organ, which she is currently preparing to study further at Doctoral level. Her other musical interests include composition and music therapy.