Meet The Players

Ilone Antonius-Jones

Born and educated in Southern Germany, Ilone now lives and teaches music in Oxfordshire. She has performed in both Germany and in the United Kingdom.

Although her first love is the flute she also teaches piano, and plays piano, organ and cello. She graduated from the University of Nurnberg, where she performed in many bands and orchestras. She has appeared with her two sisters, who are also flute players. Balancing a busy family life and teaching career, Ilone loves to perform both as a soloist and with the Antonius Players.

Louis de Bernières

Louis was born in London in 1954. He joined the army at 18 but left after spending four months at Sandhurst. He studied philosophy at Manchester University, took a postgraduate certificate in Education at Leicester Polytechnic and obtained his MA at the University of London. Before writing full-time, he held many varied jobs including landscape gardener, motorcycle messenger and car mechanic. He also taught English in Colombia, an experience which determined the style and setting of his first three novels, 'The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts' (1990), which was followed by 'Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord' and 'The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman' each of which was heavily influenced by South American literature, particularly 'magic realism'. In 1993, he was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British novelists. Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994) won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. In the UK, it has sold more than 2.5 million copies. In 2002, he published Red Dog, a novel for children set in Australia.

Birds Without Wings was published by Harvill Secker in 2004, and his most recent novel, A Partisan's Daughter (Harvill Secker March 2008) will be out in paperback in Spring 2009 (Vintage). (Photograph by Simon Buck Photography)

Tina Gandy

Spotted by the flute teacher at Chethams School of Music aged 14, Tina was taught by Roger Rostron, the principle flute of the Halle Orchestra. She went on to study Music and French at Goldsmiths College in London, graduating with Honours in 1983. She is now Principal Flute in the Buckinghamshire Chamber Orchestra, and performs in both a Wind Quartet and Wind Quintet. She is also asked to play at Weddings and Social Events. She is a CTABRSM qualified teacher and combines this with her performing work and running her family.

Rachel Selvidge

Rachel is the most recent member of the players. After achieving a distinction in Performance at the Birmingham Conservatoire, she played professionally with the highly acclaimed Chameleon Wind Quintet for several years. She left full-time playing to work in Music Education, firstly at the Wigmore Hall, then as Manager of the Education Department at the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, leaving earlier this year to work as a freelance consultant in this field. Luckily she still manages to squeeze in time to do the odd concert with the Antonius Players and the Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra!

Emma Pountney

The Antonius Players are occassionally joined by Emma Pountney.

Emma started learning the clarinet at eight years old.  After playing with the Essex Youth Orchestra for three years, she toured with The European Youth Wind Orchestra in 1995. She studied for a degree at Trinity College of Music, London and recently completed a postgraduate in performance at the University of Stavanger, Norway.  During her time in Norway, she formed a quintet with members of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and worked there as a conductor, teacher and freelance clarinettist.

She now lives and works in Nottingham and is principal clarinet with the Nottingham Philharmonic.