Welcome to Enfield Chamber Orchestra

Enfield Chamber Orchestra

80 years of music making in Enfield and North London!  

In 2007, after over 60 years as Enfield String Players, we changed our focus and name to Enfield Chamber Orchestra (EChO), in order to incorporate a regular body of wind players and become Enfield’s first chamber orchestra.

At the end of 2007, Martin Smith (pictured left) was appointed our musical director.

Martin Smith was an Exhibitioner at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and a scholarship winner at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied violin and conducting.

Martin has been active as a professional violinist for many years. He began as a member of the Duke String Quartet, with whom he appeared throughout Britain and Europe, and he has also appeared with the Allegri and Bridge Quartets. He currently performs with the Ellerdale Piano Trio, which he founded in 1992, and with the Primavera Ensemble.

Martin works with many of the country’s foremost chamber orchestras, notably the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the English Chamber Orchestra and the London Mozart Players, of which he has been a member for over twenty years.

He also leads New London Sinfonia and Orchestra Nova, and has appeared as guest leader of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra, Brunel Ensemble and London Concertante. He has made solo appearances around the UK and also in France, Germany, Holland and the United States, many as leader of the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, which he led and directed for over ten years.

In recent years Martin has returned to conducting, buoyed by success in concerts for the London Mozart Players and London Soloists Chamber Orchestra in 2007.  He conducted the LMP most recently in 2015, and has led orchestral workshops for them and for the European String Teachers’ Association. Since 2008 he has been Artistic Director of Enfield Chamber Orchestra, and he has also worked with the Southgate and Bushey Symphony Orchestras. In 2016 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Richmond Orchestra.

Our leader, Sarah Colley, studied at the Royal Academy of Music with the French violinist Maurice Hasson. After free-lancing with various orchestras including City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Belmont Ensemble of London she became a full-time member of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Whilst living in Asia she gave several recitals in Japan and Malaysia with her husband, classical guitarist Warren Alexander. On returning to the UK she became the leader of Enfield Chamber Orchestra, then known as Enfield String Players and continued her work with the Belmont Ensemble alongside raising her three children. She has recently joined the Hammig String Quartet, giving recitals in South London and further afield.

If you are interested in joining us please get in touch.