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, hand bell 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 with Honours and a Licenciate in Vocal/Instrumental Teaching, Angela continued with a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance studying organ under Roger Sayer at Rochester Cathedral and Ian Curror at 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 Charitable Trust, as well as a number of private contributors.
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; in December 2011 for the Louis Braille Association in Tetouan, Morocco; in October 2014 at the Haninge Kulturhus, Sweden, with Swedish Eurovision band One Voice; and in October 2016 for the Signing of the Marrakesh Treaty at the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. 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.
Angela provides private instrumental and general music tuition, from beginner through to advanced. She is also a 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 with the teaching/learning, transcription and publication of Braille music, and who exercise additional accessible technologies. In 2008, Angela formed part of the Round House Folk band, playing flutes, piano-accordion, mandolin and celtic harp, performing a variety of traditional tunes and songs, and playing regularly at local folk sessions and for other public and private functions. In 2022, Angela was appointed Organist and Director of Music at St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s church in Hellingly, East Sussex, following appointments at St. Peter’s church in Hever and St. Paul’s church in Four Elms, Kent, since 2006, as well as many other free-lance engagements. In 2011, she 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, the latter of which she intends to pursue at a professional level, and to practice as a harp therapist.
Angela married husband Matthew on the 9th of June 2018, and was blessed with motherhood to son Reuben on the 4th of September 2021. She says:
“ I love being a wife and a new mummy! despite the somewhat different challenges I have never faced before; but, we all face different challenges throughout our lives, for which we simply just have to adapt to in the best way we can…, which is why I’m here, having achieved all that I have, and enjoying all that I am!”