Mark Messenger - Violin, gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, aged 16, where he studied with David Martin, Sidney Griller, and the Amadeus String Quartet. He has since had a full career as a chamber musician, soloist and orchestral leader. He played first with the Bingham and currently the Bochmann String Quartet, touring overseas and recording with both ensembles. He has always been involved in the commissioning, performance and promotion of new music. For many years he also performed and toured extensively with his jazz/rock crossover group, Mercury Jazz.

As an educationalist, Mark has also been responsible for the initiation and delivery of outreach programmes for many orchestras and organisations including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, English Symphony Orchestra and Colchester Borough Council.

For four years, he was Director of Chamber Music at the Aberystwyth International Summer Music Festival, and now is regularly invited to deliver chamber music courses at the Britten-Pears school in Aldeburgh. In 1998, he set up the Essex School's String Orchestras Project in order to stimulate string playing within the county and reverse a ten-year decline, and in 2000 he was invited to become Artistic Director and conductor of the Essex Young People's Orchestra, a position he currently holds.

In September 2002, he took up the post of Head of Strings at the Royal College of Music, London. He also still manages to perform, conduct, teach, fix orchestras, go scuba diving and run marathons.