Steve Elcock, born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire in 1957, obtained an A-Level in music and learned the violin up to grade 7. As a composer, he is otherwise self-taught, beginning to write from around age fifteen and continuing to do so ever since. He trained as a teacher of French but, once qualified in 1981, he moved to France, where he worked in language services until his retirement in 2019. From being unknown to anyone outside a small circle of his friends and family, his music has now come to the attention of music lovers, conductors and reviewers. That turnaround began with the release of his Third Symphony which was released in September 2017 and was almost immediately featured as “CD of the Week” on Record Review on BBC Radio 3 – a rare feat for a work by a hitherto unknown composer. Steve Elcock has composed ten symphonies to date, five of which have been recorded. He has also written concertos, symphonic poems and much chamber music.

South-African born Zoë Beyers has established a reputation as one of the finest violinists based in the UK, and performs as soloist, chamber musician, director and orchestral leader across the world. Zoë performs regularly with the English Symphony Orchestra as a soloist and director, as well as in her role as their concertmaster. Zoë relishes the challenge of directing from the violin: her recording of early Mendelssohn concerti with the University of Stellenbosch Camerata was nominated for a SAMA award in 2011. Zoë is dedicated to performing the music of contemporary composers and is involved in the commissioning and premiering of several new works.

Hailed by Gramophone Magazine as “a symphonic conductor of stature”, Kenneth Woods was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra in 2013, and has quickly built up an impressive and acclaimed body of work and recordings with them. Under Kenneth Woods’s leadership, the English Symphony Orchestra has gained widespread recognition as one of the most innovative and influential orchestras in the UK. The 21st Century Symphony Project is an English Symphony Orchestra initiative conceived by Kenneth Woods. The initial goal was to commission, premiere and record nine new symphonies by nine different composers. The 21CSP has been called “one of the most important musical initiatives of modern times” by Robert Matthew-Walker, Editor of Musical Opinion Quarterly, and “simply the most important series of commissions and recordings of our times,” by musicologist and cultural commentator Peter Davison, former Artistic Consultant at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.