Peter Stevenson (clarinet and past RTO Chairman)

As Chairman, Peter has been unable to practise for 12 years and has not therefore moved on from his Grade Four (pass) in 1996. His roles as Treasurer, Secretary, Librarian, Rehearsal Organiser, Concert Organiser, Assistant Music Director, Fund Raiser, and Promoter have ensured his control over the RTO is absolute. Now, however, he has signalled his intention to delegate, once he discovers what the word means. Announcing recently that he would be taking more of a back seat in future, Peter informed flabbergasted RTO members that he would hand over the opening of wine bottles at concerts to someone else. A former investment banker, Peter would like to take life at a slower pace if only he knew how. Perversely, he would like to take the clarinet at a faster pace.

Alison St Clair Ford (clarinet)

Alison joined the RTO in the very early days and although she had not played a note since leaving university, there was a bit of a buzz attending her arrival. This, after all, was a clarinettist who had, while still at school, participated in a performance of Beethoven’s violin concerto with none other than Yehudi Menuhin! It is absolutely safe to say that no other member of the RTO has ever played – or (even more certainly) will ever play – alongside Menuhin. For this reason alone, Alison would be treasured, but she brings much more than musicianship to the orchestra, including valuable organisational skills without which many an RTO event would not have materialised. Most people have no idea how much Alison does behind the scenes because she rarely sticks her head above the parapet. That’s the sort of clarinettist she is. Not the other sort.

Marge Chandler (flute)

Marge, a Californian vet, is probably too able a flautist for RTO purposes. She is also a rather gifted pianist. It is as a cellist, then, that she will be most fondly remembered. Marge first played the cello about a year ago, very shortly before the Christmas concert in which she appeared as part of a ‘sting trio’. With Gill McConnell on viola and Andrew Short on violin, she stunned an audience of family and friends, performing, it is believed, Brahms – or was it Shostakovich, hard to tell! The crowd went mad even before it was over and there was some weeping. Only from the RTO could such musicians emerge.

Kim Walker, (flute, etc.)

Kim joined the RTO after picking up his daughter’s discarded flute - the first time he’d played in 50 years. In the early days, he featured as sixth flute but when the late great RTO composer Douglas Mackay asked if anyone could play the piccolo, Kim spotted his chance. He bought one on eBay the following week and thereby reached the dizzy heights of first piccolo. Now he also fills in on penny whistle or Bosun’s pipe, as occasion demands, and is open to further challenges. Kim once wrote to the Signet but since retirement has been trying to help physically or mentally disabled people to use computers. RTO members need not apply.

Hugh's oboe playing career is a tale of unfulfilled promised and thwarted ambition. On his first appearance
in the school orchestra, his co-oboist 'accidentally' sat on Hugh's reed (an action he later came to regret). Undeterred, relentless practice led to a glittering schoolboy career, culminating in a successful attempt at Grade 8 and a masterclass with the great Evelyn Rothwell (aka Lady Barbirolli). Since then, his oboe playing has gone into irreversible (if not terminal) decline, leading finally to admission to the RTO. Hugh revels in the role as the orchestra's principal cor anglais. However, this apparent accolade is something of an illusion, as the RTO's modest library contains only one piece with a cor anglais part. Indeed, most members of the orchestra have no idea what a cor anglais is.

Alison Holt (oboe)

Like all the oboes, Alison takes a relaxed view of rehearsals, regarding them as an opportunity to catch up with her fellow oboists rather than practise the notes. Indeed, conversations in the oboe section can be so engrossing that entire pieces pass without any of the oboe part having been played. Like the rest of her section, though, Alison is pretty fed up with the many barbed comments aimed at the oboes by other less talented members of the orchestra, such as the sousaphone section. Alison takes the view that once the oboes haven given the A by which the orchestra (allegedly) tunes itself at the start of rehearsals, their job is done. Alison has specifically asked us not to mention that she holds a degree in Music, for fear that the awarding institution might have second thoughts and request the return of her certificate.

With a love of the outdoors and a penchant for kayaking, mountaineering and fell-walking - including bagging Munros - Victoria clearly has a taste for adventure. Just as well, as playing the oboe in the RTO means sitting directly in front of the trumpet section during rehearsals - a dangerous pursuit if ever there was one. However, as a member of the Edinburgh lawyers' mafia, Victoria is planning to use her acute legal brain to obtain a generous out-of-court settlement should a particularly ferocious trumpet fanfare lead to permanent hearing loss or mental impairment.

Frances Yuille (oboe)

A consultant in clinical oncology, Frances provides the obligatory (but much-needed) medical presence in the oboe section, ready to step in at the first sign of dehydration, hyperventilation or overinflation - all hazards of playing this demanding double-reed instrument. Frances is planning further post-doctoral research into conditions that typically beset oboists, such as lip fatigue and substance abuse. She is on the hunt for real-life case studies - a quick glance at the RTO oboe section suggests she won't have to look very far.