This page lists Tutors for Variations 2024 and will be updated to show Variations 2025 Tutors later.

The Edinburgh Quartet

Edinburgh Quartet


The Edinburgh Quartet has long been celebrated as one of Britain’s foremost chamber ensembles, having appeared regularly at prestigious venues across the UK and toured extensively across Europe, the Far and Middle East, and North and South America.

Visit our dedicated Edinburgh Quartet page for more detailed information and individual artist biographies.

Rosie Staniforth, oboe

Rosie Staniforth, oboe


Rosie grew up in Yorkshire and began playing the oboe at the age of nine. She studied Modern Languages at Oxford University before winning a postgraduate scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where she was a pupil of Michael Winfield and John Anderson. She won various RCM oboe prizes and gave the London premiere of the Horowitz Oboe Concerto.

She subsequently won a scholarship to the Geneva Conservatoire to study with Maurice Bourgue, her musical idol! Rosie graduated with a distinction and won a place on the prestigious “Troisieme Cycle” course at the Paris Conservative, where she able to further hone her skills with the same mentor.

Whilst still a student Rosie was offered the position of Sub-Principal Oboe with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, a post which she retained for 21 years. During this period, she also freelanced as Principal Oboe both locally-with the RSNO, BBCSSO, Scottish Opera and Scottish Ballet- and nationally, with orchestras such as The Philharmonia, The Halle, Northern Sinfonia and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She taught for at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for sixteen years and tutored the oboe section of The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

She has enjoyed many opportunities to work as a soloist, performing concertos by Strauss, Vaughan Williams, Bach, Mozart and Macmillan amongst others. Rosie loves playing chamber music, although is not a big fan of the wind quintet!

As a devotee of opera, Rosie was thrilled to be offered her dream job as Co-Principal Oboe with the English National Opera in 2019. In 2024 she was promoted to Section Principal and is regularly invited to play as Guest Principal with The London Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, The BBC Concert Orchestra and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst others.

She enjoys giving masterclasses and examining at the London colleges and still manages the odd foreign tour with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Rosie now lives between London and the Cotswolds, where she enjoys rambling, horse-riding and feeding the local sheep!

Philip Burrin, violin

Philip Burrin, violin


Philip’s first musical experiences were with St Swithun’s Church choir in his home town of East Grinstead Sussex England after which he started the violin at Lancing College with Ernest Barr. He attended the Royal College of Music, London in 1972 studying Violin with Jaroslav Vanecek and John Ludlow and Viola with John Dyer. There he joined the Heller String Quartet in 1975 which went to Bermuda in 1976 as the first Quartet of the Menuhin Foundation. He was also conductor of the Bermuda National Youth Orchestra.

In 1982 Philip returned to England and worked as Head of strings at Westminster School, London. The following year he was appointed Principal Second Violin of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra based in Glasgow. The Orchestra went on numerous tours to Holland, Germany, Poland, Canada, Italy and Switzerland. During that time he also taught at the RSAMD (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) Junior Department. He became the Second Violinist of the Edinburgh Quartet in 1998. As well as touring UK and abroad, the Quartet had residencies at Napier and Aberdeen Universities.

Philip has coached orchestral and chamber music extensively over many years at National Youth Orchestra of Scotland courses, Strings and Wind course at Mar Lodge in Aberdeenshire, Durham University Symphony Orchestra and Variations Ullapool. In March 2013 he retired from the Edinburgh Quartet to concentrate on teaching.

Philip moved to Berlin in the summer of 2014 , where for five years he taught English at a Berlin Language School and privately, and also had a few violin pupils. In February 2016 he returned to Bermuda to conduct two concerts in the Bermuda Festival to commemorate Menuhin’s Centenary and the 40th anniversary of the Menuhin Foundation.

During this time Philip stopped playing violin because of arthritis and, since his official retirement in 2020, has enjoyed some piano playing and more composing.

Barnaby Robson, clarinet

Barnaby Robson, clarinet


Barnaby has performed, recorded and broadcast music across a diverse range of genres from early to contemporary, symphonic, chamber, opera and film scores. He has collaborated with composers and ensembles including Thomas Adès, the Belcea Quartet, George Fenton, London Sinfonietta, Roderick Williams, Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment, James Newton Howard and the London Winds. Barnaby studied at the Guildhall School of Music and then as a Fulbright Scholar at The Juilliard School, New York. Barnaby was Principal Clarinet of the Philharmonia Orchestra from 2000-2013 and currently holds the same position with the English National Opera Orchestra. He is a Yamaha Sponsored Artist.

As a composer Barnaby has written and arranged music for film, TV and the concert hall. His scores can be heard in productions on the BBC, ITV, Netflix and Amazon. Barnaby has arranged a variety of music from Monteverdi to The Cure. His arrangement of ‘The Snow Leopard’ from George Fenton’s BBC ‘Planet Earth’ soundtrack is available on Orchid Classics and has been broadcast on Scala Radio.

Barnaby is Professor of Clarinet at the Royal College of Music and has given master classes in Switzerland, Singapore, Australia and Iceland. He is an adjudicator for BBC Young Musician and a guest examiner at the Royal Academy of Music. His research interests include the clarinet music of Herbert Howells. A previously unheard version of the Howells Clarinet Sonata is featured on Barnaby’s most recent album, which Radio 3 described as “an exhilarating and imaginative celebration of the 20th century clarinet”.

Barnaby is currently studying for an MSc in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music.