Chair - Ian Clark
Ian is a retired psychiatrist and Medical Director. He has been with the orchestra since its foundation in 2007. He was chairman up to 2019 and has recently been re-elected (2023). He has a long history of chairing organisations within the NHS and the arts and charitable sectors and is currently on the board of three charities. He struggles to play the viola having taken it up at retirement.
Vice Chair - Helen Anderson
Helen has the honour of being the first musician to play at each rehearsal as she provides the tune-up concert ‘A’ on her oboe. As one of the founder members she originally played flute which she started to learn at the age of 11. When she realised that oboe music looked much easier to play than flute music (apologies to oboe players everywhere), she decided to become an oboist. After an intense 18 months getting to grips with her new choice of instrument, she shifted seats to 2nd oboe. She now plays 1st oboe and continues to take lessons from Joe Houghton at NESMS.
Helen is a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen Institute of Dentistry, in her spare time she can be found working in her apiary or out running in the lovely countryside around Inverurie.
Secretary - Tamsin Morris
Tamsin plays double bass in the orchestra. She always wanted to play double bass as a child, but, understandably, her parents weren’t keen to buy such an expensive instrument. So, for her first few months, she practiced on a broom handle, and to this day, she remains one of the finest broom handle players you’ll meet!
Tamsin works as an ecologist so often arrives at rehearsals after a day of survey work, looking like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards (and often, she has). The rest of the time she spends trying to tire out her two over-enthusiastic collies.
Concert Secretary - Jeanette Barclay
Jeanette is the founder member of Inverurie Orchestra and has been playing second violin since the orchestra was established in 2007. She was Vice Chair from 2007 until 2019 and returned to the committee as Concert Secretary in late 2023.
Treasurer - Caroline Thomson
Caroline plays bassoon in the orchestra and joined the orchestra at its start in 2007, initially playing clarinet before moving over to the bassoon section.She also plays tenor saxophone in Inverurie Concert Band, Aberdeenshire Saxophone Orchestra and the Aberdeen Community Big Band at the Blue Lamp in Aberdeen.
In her ‘other’ spare mins she is a leader with Brownies and Guides, and is currently the Treasurer for the District at Haddo. A busy mum to grown up daughters, she works part time in her architectural business she runs with her husband and loves to go walkies with their Jack Russell doggie Lily too!
Librarian - Julian Slater
Julian plays trumpet with the orchestra and looks after the orchestra's physical sheet music library.
Safeguarding Officer - Sharon Huxtable
Sharon plays French horn with the orchestra.Webmaster - Ian Talboys
Ian wanted to start playing the flute aged 9 but his arms were not long enough to reach so took up the recorder first. He acheived his Grade 8 in his final year of school and has since taken up the piccolo, playing both in the orchestra....
He is also a keen bell ringer and Tower Captain at St Machar's Aberdeen so rings bells weighing a tonne or more and plays the piccolo - something small and something large!
When not making music Ian was Aberdeen City Council's Countryside Officer managing the Ranger Service. He has recently retired and giving him more time for his other passion, wildlife photography.
Ian is Webmaster for the Inverurie Orchestra and the Ury Riverside Park as well as for his own website.
Ordinary Member - Carol Bristow
Carol joined the orchestra the year after its inception, as an “adult learner”. Having played the piano as a child she wanted to move on to an instrument where she would always get a place in amateur orchestras no matter how badly she played. Right enough, there are never enough viola players, Maybe due to the fact that they are always the butt of orchestra jokes – you may have heard such as "How can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune? The bow is moving". Poor old violists. She also plays in Deeside Orchestra and a string quartet, dabbling with the violin ready for the time when the viola is too heavy to hold up.
Having recently finished Uni where she was the most mature (!) student of architecture, she now has more time to practise, so no more excuses.
Leader - Ruth Kalitski
Ruth's biography will be coming soon.
