Introducing our 2024 Trainee Music Leaders

María Mónica Gutiérrez is a London-based Colombian singer, songwriter, and creative practitioner. She has explored sound and music through her voice, songs, and synthesizers for over 13 years with her solo project Montañera and bands Suricato (Experimental Jazz) and Ságan (Indie Electronic).

María’s most recent solo album ‘A Flor de Piel’ released under Western Vinyl, combines ambient, experimental electronics, Colombian traditional music, and peacebuilding theories around sound. It received outstanding reviews by Pitchfork, The Guardian, and it was included in Iggy Pop’s and David Byrne’s radio shows.

María’s community creative practice involves leading, designing, and delivering bespoke projects around music, empowerment, wellbeing and cultural identity with several organizations and across all ages. She is a certified yoga teacher and MA in Music and Social Development from SOAS, University of London, with a fully funded scholarship granted by the UK’s FCDO for leaders of developing countries, graduated with Distinction. María is very passionate about all things related to how sound can help us connect with the outside and inner worlds for individual and collective healing.

Daria Phillips is a freelance bassoonist and contra bassoonist who began lessons on the mini-bassoon at the age of 7 as part of a council-run project. She progressed through the various music ensembles within her borough before joining the music course at Junior Guildhall, where she held the Bassoon Scholarship and, in her final year, received the Woodwind Prize. 

Daria has been invited to play with Chineke! Orchestra, an initiative that aims to promote diversity in classical music-making, on numerous concert tours and recordings. She was a Junior Artist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (2016-17) mentored by the principal bassoonist, Jonathan Davies. 

Daria studied in The Hague with Gretha Tuls and at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where she won the Bassoon Prize and Contrabassoon Prize. She regularly performs Chamber music with various ensembles. 

Daria enjoys encouraging young musicians to explore the art form and works as a teacher and workshop leader with various organisations, supporting young musicians from their first steps on the mini bassoon to final preparations for higher education study.

Kiran is a versatile instrumentalist (training with virtuoso flautist Jason Kalidas and community leader Rajinder Kaur from Raj Academy UK), composer, producer, and multi-disciplinary artist with particular interests in Indian classical music, Sikh kirtan music and electronic hip-hop. 

Their work includes collaborations with arts organisations, wellness communities and festivals; blending diverse musical genres whilst exploring Kiran’s queer, cross-spiritual, Punjabi-diasporic identity; notably with their co-founded sound collective db0 and they have recently been commissioned by zerOclassikal to create an innovative new piece extrapolating Indian Classical music through contemporary approaches. 

Kiran has performed in concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall Southbank, Royal College of Music Museum Concert Hall, Rich Mix Shoreditch, Wilton’s Music Hall, and Gurdwara Karamsar Ilford. 

Also active as a yoga and ayurvedic instructor, Kiran combines his passions through offerings of sound yoga. Prior to his music career, Kiran worked in videography and photography, and interdisciplinary work remains key to their practice.

Keir Vine is a composer, performer and sound practitioner who works across many platforms, from sonic installations, music in rehabilitative settings, film scores and sound in theatre.

​​​​Keir recorded and toured internationally with the Mercury-nominated group Portico Quartet from 2012-2022, playing everywhere from Tokyo to Johannesburg and recording in world-renowned studios like Abbey Road and Real World.

​​In 2014 Keir started his community-focused practice working with Headway East London and their members with brain injuries, which led him to further work with the ‘Music at Heart’ Team in the Royal London Hospital, delivering bedside songs as well as co-creating writing and recording projects. 

​​​​He has also worked with ‘Sounds Like Chaos’ for a number of years, devising work with young people in Lewisham, co-devised pieces with political refugees at the Young Vic, and more recently co-made a multi-channel sonic artwork in The Wilson using audio recordings from interviews with women from the local community around the gallery. 

​​​​In early 2024, he moved to Suffolk and has now begun working with Britten Pears Arts on their programme for music in prisons, elderly Suffolk residents in the area, and with arts organisation Little Beats, working with new mothers.

After a brief spell at the Scottish Academy of Music in Violin Performance, Helena Todd trained and continues to work as a nurse and primary school teacher. She remains a determined violinist, organising charity concerts, freelancing with Aderyn quartet, and playing with orchestras, most recently Brecknock Sinfonia and Gwent Chamber Orchestra, and last year performed the Bruch violin concerto with Abergavenny Symphony Orchestra. Helena benefitted from a scholarship to attend a Jazz course and Violin masterclass with Thomas Gould at Dartington Summer School last year.

Helena’s passion for music-making, however, derives from a want to make it available to all. She is inspired by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, El Sistema, and the West Eastern Divan Orchestra as true pinnacles of what can be achieved with music. She is also interested in Kodaly and Dalcroze approaches to music teaching and how these might be implemented to effectively engage audiences and participants of diverse backgrounds.

Helena says: ‘I believe that music of every genre is a powerful tool for positive change, integration and cohesion in our society and is something that, if shared effectively, can be enjoyed by all. I hope that through the Spitalfields traineeship I will be better equipped to modernise the traditional concert experience and to galvanise the next generation of music makers and appreciators. Having a young son has motivated me to realise these ambitions.’