Helen was born and brought up in West London. She read music at St Catharine's College, Cambridge and was awarded an instrumental scholarship for the study of piano chamber music. After graduating she entered the Royal Academy of music on an exhibition and spent two years studying Piano Accompaniment with Geoffrey Pratley, Graeme Humphrey and Aaron Shorr. She graduated with a DipRAM, the highest performance award, and an LRAM in teaching.
Helen is now the Head of Music at Francis Holland School in Chelsea. She also finds time to pursue a career as a freelance pianist and conductor. She has performed piano concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin and Poulenc with West London Sinfonia and other local orchestras. In April 2002 she performed Mozart's Double Piano Concerto and other two-piano works with the Chinese pianist Shen Yue in Beijing. Helen is also in demand as an accompanist to both singers and instrumentalists and works regularly with the vocal group Operantics.
Helen has conducted St Stephen's Church Choir, West Ealing and has also been acting conductor for Ealing Youth Choir. She is assistant conductor for Grove Park Festival Choir and also conducts the chamber choir Coro. She made her conducting debut at St. John's, Smith Square in March 2006, with a performance of Vivaldi's Gloria and Handel's Zadok the Priest.
