Musical Director
GEORGE SALMON
Conductor and baritone George Salmon began playing music at the age of 3, when he took up the violin. He read music at the University of Birmingham, where he was invited onto the Conducting pathway in his final year. He went onto study at masterclasses with Jorma Panula in Madrid and Colin Metters in Cardiff, before undertaking a Masters in Conducting at the University of Surrey, graduating with Distinction in 2016. Since then, George has built a diverse portfolio of conducting work, and is presently the Musical Director of the Phoenix Choir of Crawley, Sittingbourne Orpheus Choral Society and OLOL Chorus. In 2019, he founded the London Philanthropic Orchestra, which brings together musicians from all over London - mixing amateurs, freelancers and members of top ensembles such as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and English National Ballet Philharmonic - in aid of charities, raising thousands of pounds for a range of different causes since its inception.
Beyond conducting, George is highly in demand as a singer. Recent engagements include tours of Merry Opera's staged production of Handel's Messiah and the baritone solo in the UK premiere of Craig Hella Johnson's Considering Matthew Shepard with the Royal Leamington Spa Bach Choir. He is also the co-founder and bass for the Sonare vocal quartet, who tour the country innovatively curated programmes of a cappella choral music spanning from the Renaissance to the present day.​
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Leader
LAURA DUGGAN
Laura started learning the violin aged 5 with Elaine Jordan, who taught her using the Suzuki violin method.
The enthusiasm and energy of Elaine, as well as the emphasis Suzuki places on playing as a group, resulted in many wonderful opportunities for concerts and tours. These included performances in London, Vienna and Budapest as well as appearing on Blue Peter all whilst still at junior school!
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Aged 10 Laura gained a place at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, studying violin first with Derek Collier and then with his daughter Susan Collier. Highlights of her time at the academy include winning the junior violin prize, a performance of the Mozart G major violin concerto as soloist with the chamber orchestra and a playthrough of Kabalevsky's violin concerto as soloist with the symphony orchestra, for which she also performed the duties of leader in her final year.
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Elsewhere Laura performed as soloist in Bach's E major violin concerto and Dvorak's romance in F minor as well as leading Buckinghamshire County Youth Orchestra on a tour of Italy.
With friends from school she formed a string quartet that, unusually for a school aged group, was invited to provide a lunchtime concert as part of the Amersham Music Festival. They also played at weddings, garden parties, and shop openings (having much more fun than at a more standard Saturday job!) with their most memorable "gig" at the Prime Minister's boxing day party at Chequers.
On leaving school Laura attended St Anne's College at the University of Oxford, where her tutors in chemistry would attest that she spent more time on music than science. Laura's love of collaborative orchestral and chamber music performance dominated her undergraduate years. She led several orchestras, including the flagship Oxford University Orchestra, and tried her hand at conducting with the St Anne's and St John's college orchestra (more of a leaky punt than a flagship but excellent fun nevertheless!).
She also performed in innumerable chamber music concerts with the Merle ensemble, a group of players from which pretty much any chamber music combination you could name could be formed, and few you probably couldn't!
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After a DPhil in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry led her to a stint as a software engineer, Laura returned to her first love and now works as a violin teacher. From pre-schoolers to retirees, Laura loves the challenge of tailoring her teaching to each individual, helping solve the puzzles of musicality and technique in different ways every lesson. She aims to set her students on a path of full awareness of their own performance, providing the tools and methods so that every individual practice becomes a self-taught lesson.
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Once her son was safely installed at primary school, Laura's first priority for her spare time was to find an orchestra to join. She was delighted to find such a warm welcome and collaborative style of music making at SARO and hopes to spend her Wednesday mornings there for the foreseeable future!
Previous Musical Director
MATTHEW HARDY
Liverpool-born musician Matthew Hardy graduated in 2018 from the masters course in orchestral conducting at the Royal College of Music, where he was fortunate to work with conductors Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martyn Brabbins, Jac van Steen, Peter Stark, and Howard Williams. Prior to this he completed an bachelors degree in classical trumpet playing at the Guildhall School in 2013.
He spent fifteen years working in the UK, enjoying appointments as music director of fifteen different orchestras, choirs, and bands in London and the South East of England. In these roles he programmed a very wide variety of classical, large-scale romantic, modern, and popular works. His work with community music ensembles saw him help many organisations grow and flourish, increasing membership and becoming more ambitious in their work.
In 2015 Matthew established East London Music Group, an charity organising performance and educational projects in London’s East End. The group’s activity has particularly focused on commissioning new works often inspired by episodes of local history including The Battle of Cable Street, the Matchgirls’ Strike of 1888, and the Poplar Rates Rebellion, and has often involved professionals performing alongside youth and community musicians. Additionally, the group has worked extensively in schools, with university students, and with community music groups to deliver ambitious and innovative projects.
In November 2025 he moved to Nairobi, Kenya and continues to work as a musician and educator.