Alumni

Since graduating in 2018 Ramera Abraham was selected as one of 3 worldwide recipients of the EQL Studio Residency, a programme for female music producers and sound engineers (in partnership with Berklee College of Music). In this role Ramera worked as the sound engineer for the Spotify Secret Genius Studio that operates out of Metropolis Studios. In addition to producing and engineering, she is also an active drummer and songwriter and part of a songwriting and production duo with fellow alumnus, Antonio Esposito. While at Spotify, Ramera engineered sessions for various producers and songwriters like Sigma, 1Mind (French Montana, Wiz Khalifa), Linnea Södahl (Zara Larsson), Mr. Hudson, and JP Cooper.  Upon completion of her role at Spotify, Ramera is now freelance sound engineer and vocal producer and has run recording sessions with Greyson Chance, Gabriele Aplin, and Not3s, and AJ Tracey. She’s also been back at Abbey Road in 2019 assisting on sessions with CHIC artists Jerry Barnes and Ralph Rolle.

Following an internship at Australia’s largest recording studio Studios 301, Becky Arnold took up an assistant engineer position at Dean Street Studios in Soho London. Becky’s role is varied; from assisting with setting up sessions, patching outboard gear and operating pro-tools to building baffles and making shelves for microphones. “I would love to progress into running sessions myself as an engineer, and also mixing tracks that are recorded there. The atmosphere of the studio is so great, I’m very glad I got the opportunity to be a part of their team and I’m looking forward to my future there.” Becky has also recently launched the company Amplifindr for which she is raising funds on Kickstarter. Amplifindr is an online studio rental portal for emerging producers, engineers, and artists.  Becky hopes to ‘make music more accessible for young and amateur creatives since commercial studios are usually too expensive for people getting started in the business.’ In her own time, Becky is busy developing her artist profile under the name of Violet Beck and planning to release an EP.

Following the completion of his studies with us and graduating in 2018 Zak Baker now works as a recording engineer and mix engineer at Blue Bell Hill Studios, a residential recording studio in Kent which is part of the Miloco network of studios. Zak engineers most of the sessions that come through the studio which can sometimes involve taking on the producer role, as well as mixing the projects. On other bookings where the artist brings their own engineer, he takes on the role of assistant. The studio is run by Barny Barnicott (Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Sam Fender) and Zak works with Barny as his mix engineer and works on mixes in the box before spreading them across the SSL console to be worked on.

After finishing his studies with us Zak travelled to Australia to take up an internship at Studios 301 alongside his fellow student Becky Arnold.

A couple of career highlights so far for Zak include engineering 4 tracks on the J Hus album, Big Conspiracy which went to number 1 in the album charts as well as assisting on the You Me At Six album and engineering for The Dualers and Octavian. You can find out more about Zak on his website.

Following his graduation in 2017, Ashyar Balsara secured a job at Island City Studios in Mumbai as a Recording & Mixing Engineer. Joining the team at Island City before the studio was functional meant Ashyar assisted with the final stages of construction as well as planning and setting up of all audio equipment. He also supported with training the assistant engineers, which he says was a great learning experience.

Now, his primary responsibility is recording and mixing, and he’s worked on many projects including recording with independent artists, on big commercial Bollywood projects, movie background scores, podcasts and audiobooks. A highlight for Ashyar is the vast variety of work he gets to be involved with and he hopes going forward he will be able to continue helping facilitate a great studio experience to all his clients/ artists. He also aims to be continuously working to improve his studios’ systems and processes, a number of which have been adapted from the way the Custom 75 studio at the Institute is operated.

Following graduating in 2019, Mia Bradley is now working as a Junior Product Manager for dance record label Anjunabeats. After working as a label assistant for a year, Mia was promoted to a permanent position of Junior product manager, overseeing releases for some of dance music’s biggest up-and-coming stars. Mia’s main role is planning all aspects of a campaign, including working closely with artists and industry-leading companies to ensure the success of every release. 

This role has allowed Mia to further delve into different genres of electronic music, not only getting a better understanding of the business side of the industry but also allowing her to pursue her own musical endeavors. She has released music under the name Mia Aurora, as well as regularly releasing DJ mixes and hosting live streams. Mia hopes that she can use her experience working for a global dance label in her own musical development.

Since completing our Advanced Diploma in 2017, Richard Bradshaw has spent two years working as an Audio Producer at Royal National Institute for Blind People. The job entails recording audiobooks, magazines and podcasts for both commercial clients and for the RNIB itself. This has enabled him to continue developing skills in areas such as voice EQ, compression, editing, post-production and mastering. A career highlight for Richard was recording Danni Dyer’s autobiography narrated by herself, however, he says every day brings something new to learn. Outside of his day job Richard Bradshaw has been working on many projects such as developing a fully mobile 32 channel UAD/ Pro Tools rig which he has been taking out to record bands in situ as well as working on various solo projects. This definitely keeps him busy and he says the experience and learning he gained on our music production course has been invaluable in his career since leaving.

Since 2019 alumnus Lucas Christoff has been working as a Producer and Sound Engineer at Dime On Music in the South of France. In this role, Lucas is responsible for engineering on all the sessions organised by the label as well as mixing the majority of tracks.

Outside of this, Lucas works as a freelance producer with a number of different artists, recording and arranging their tracks and working across genres such as funk, pop and hip hop. Despite completing the course and moving countries, he still finds ways to work with other alumni across Europe, saying they make a great team having both been trained together at the Institute. Some of these projects include the recent recording of his album “Pigeons & Rats” in Rome, producing an upcoming hip hop release and starting a new project ‘Band and Breakfast’ in collaboration with fellow alumni Francesco Putorti.

From Abbey Road Institute to Abbey Road Studios, Marta Di Nozzi has been working as a runner at the world-famous recording studios since she graduated in 2019. Marta is responsible for preparing the studios for each client’s arrival and making sure they are comfortable during sessions. This includes helping the engineering team to set up the rooms and making sure that all the gear is working at its best. The job also entails supporting the engineer and assistant engineer during sessions, from taking notes during recording, to patching and operating a DAW.

Since starting at Abbey Road Studios, Marta has been involved in projects across a wide range of music genres, from classic music and movie scores to rock albums. A highlight has been assisting the recording of Joe Bonamassa’s new album in Studio One where she shared the live room with musicians including Reese Wynans, Anton Fig, Michael Rhodes, Jools Holland and Bernie Marsden. Her ambitions for the future are to pursue a career as a sound engineer/record producer in a studio environment and ‘to keep learning from the best people in this industry while strongly supporting equality in the music industry’.

Since graduating in 2018, Antonio Esposito has been working as a freelance producer, songwriter and mix engineer out of his studio in Italy. He regularly collaborates with artists and producers from Italy, the UK and Ireland, as well as being part of a songwriting and production duo with fellow alumnus, Ramera Abraham. Currently, while working on his music career, Antonio is also finishing his Masters degree in Computer Science at the Polytechnic University of Milan.

As well as working from his own studio, Antonio has travelled to Dublin and London multiple times, coming back to Abbey Road to record artists like Hawke, and recording in studios like the Spotify Secret Genius Studio, based at Metropolis Studio. 
His latest works include mixing for Matt Taylor and for producer duo Afterparty, and writing, producing and mixing for the band Hawke. In the future Antonio would like to further expand his freelancing activity, working with more and more artists from all over the world.

Tristan Holmes-Jefferd graduated from our Advanced Diploma in 2019 and has been pursuing his career in live sound since then. He is currently working at Britannia Row Productions as a Warehouse Operative as well as working across various freelance jobs, be it in production or live sound. His role at Britannia Row is focussed on managing equipment, which means that on a daily basis he is testing equipment, loading in and out from trucks, maintaining speakers and looming cables, for clients such as the BRIT Awards. Outside of this work, he has mixed front-of-house for Sofar Sounds in Portsmouth and produced for a fashion-themed horror escape maze in Paris by Jean Paul Gaultier. Moving forward he would love to continue branching out into the live sound industry and will be releasing music he has mixed on label K7 Records in 2020.

You can read our interview with Tristan on our blog here.

Tom Larner graduated from the Abbey Road Institute in 2017 and now works as an Agents Assistant in the Personal Appearance & Music department at WME. Following his graduation, Tom decided to gear his career ambitions towards the music business/label & management areas of the industry, rather than production and engineering. This decision was partly inspired by his music business lecturer, Ian Ramage, whose lectures provided a compelling insight into business aspects of the music industry.

Since joining WME, Tom has had the opportunity to work in several departments. One of Tom’s first assistant roles at the company was within the International Festival Department under Jesse Fayne, where he assisted in booking WME clients onto 50+ major festivals throughout the UK & Europe, working with the companies diverse roster from major headline artists through to up-and-coming artists.

In 2019, Lucy Dickins joined WME and Tom was given the chance to join her team. He has since been working alongside James Simmons, assisting him in booking global tours for both of their impressive rosters of clients.

Tom really enjoys working with developing artists on the companies roster and learning the strategies behind helping break an artist. At the moment he is embracing all the learning and opportunities afforded to him at WME with Lucy and James. In the future, he would like to work towards becoming an agent himself.

Since graduating in London, Andrea Mastroiacovo now works as the in-house assistant engineer at Baltic Studios, collaborating with world-class songwriters, artist, producers and engineers. He has recently worked with James Bay, Paloma Faith, Ama Lou, and assisted Andy Taylor (Duran Duran, Rod Stewart) and Billy Halliday (Adele, U2, Frank Ocean, James Blake). The main responsibilities of his role include both technical and creative skills. Andrea ensures that all the equipment in the studio is in full working order and assists on sessions, helping producers, engineers and musicians in capturing the sound they are looking for. Andrea’s goals for the near future are to become a full in-house engineer at Baltic and to start producing bands and artists of his own.

Arthur Navarro graduated from our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound engineering in 2018. During his time on the course, he met producer Youth and signed to his label, Suriya recordings, and released his debut solo album, Polyphonic Omnipresence. Now, based back in his home country of Brasil, Arthur has started his own company Atlantis Music & Sound, in which he works in a multi-faced role as composer, music producer and sound engineer, and is now starting to establish partnerships with movie directors and cinema producers.

Some of his projects to date include work on an original sound track as well as sound design for a 3D short-film animation called “Centaura” and an original track for an environmentalist documentary for the Institute Last Refuges (Instituto Últimos Refúgios). Arthur continues to work with his Institute peers, including regular work with Natalia Rodrigues Milanezi, and is looking to release a solo album in the future.

You can find out more about Arthur’s time on the course and what he’s been upto since then, in this interview on our blog.

Following his graduation, Dominic Parry has been working as a full-time apprentice at leading audio equipment rental company Britannia Row Productions. Founded by Pink Floyd, Britannia Row has grown to become a global leader providing equipment for the London Olympics, Foo Fighters, Mumford & Sons and The Cure‘s tour.  Dominic assisted in the 2019 Brit Awards as a stage technician for numerous performing acts including James Bay, Calvin Harris, Hugh Jackman, and P!NK. He has also worked on Andrea Bocelli’s world tour and the MTV European Music Awards.  Dominic’s apprenticeship scheme at Britannia Row Productions continued the training he started at Abbey Road Institute. He worked for several months in each of the companies departments (Maintenance, Speakers, Cables, Rigging, RF, Digital, Warehouse Manager Assistant & Prep) whilst taking part in two 15 week training courses; Live Sound fundamentals and Live Sound Intermediate. Alongside his day work, Dominic Parry has worked on gigs at The Roundhouse and the centennial WW1 memorial service.

You can find out more about Britannia Row on our blog.

Francesco Putorti enrolled at Abbey Road Institute London having completed a Masters in Sound Engineering in his home country of Italy. Straight after his graduation he started working as an intern at Forum Music Village, a studio in Rome which was founded by Ennio Morricone. Having worked as a Chinese translator prior to studying audio engineering he was invited to go on tour with an orchestra across many cities in China during this period.

Today he works at Forward Studios, where his role involves engineering for both established and upcoming artists. He works on a Neve 88R on a day to day basis, managing and ensuring the smooth running of the sessions in the studio. As part of his work at the Forward he is also developing a recording format called Band and Breakfast which aims to provide an immersive music experience.

Ollie Robinson graduated from our Advanced Diploma in 2019 and is now working as the Director of Armistice Records, the record company he set up before studying at the institute. The company has now entered into a joint partnership with Apex Studios in Hampshire to form Arcadia Music Group, and Ollie is also one of the two directors of the joint venture company.

His main responsibilities within this role are the recording and mixing of clients projects as well as arranging. He also does day to day management and client A&R for Arcadia Music Group and the respective subsidiaries under it, centered around the growth of the company.

A highlight for Ollie in his work is the variety of songs, artists and projects he gets work on, especially track recorded and produced at the studio called “She Knows” by Donny Brook. He says his greatest achievement to date is building the studio and says the Institute course equipped him with the skills to identify any problems that arose to immediately deal with it and fix it. His goals for the future are to start to work with more established bands and to develop the company brand as well as start working with clients and artists from countries all over the world.

UK-based, Canadian alumna Hayley Roscoe graduated from our Advanced Diploma in 2019, having previously studied at Berklee in the USA. She now works as Client and Societies Administrator at Lime Blue Music, an industry leader in neighbouring rights as well as continuing her work as a songwriter, producer and musician.

Among her many freelance projects, Hayley co-wrote debut EP ‘Product of Procrastination’ with London-based artist Am.i, and is a featured vocalist on 80s synth-wave tune ‘Savour’ with DUETT. Her ambitions for the next couple of years are to release further solo projects as well as continue to collaborate with other artists.

Read more about Hayley’s career in our interview with her here.

After completing his studies in 2018 Balazs Szabo moved back to Budapest and secured a job at Pannonia Studios as a recording and mixing engineer. Pannonia is one of the most respected and established recording studios in Hungary, built for recording purposes in the 1950s. Balazs’ role was to set up, record or mix orchestral or pop sessions/projects. Since joining the team, one of his most memorable moments was his first working day, assisting on the orchestral recording for Ferenc Rófusz – The Last Suppers session. In addition to studio work, Balazs worked as a freelancer under the professional name Deadman’s Recordings. His work encompassed a broad range of music industry projects including production, engineering and mastering of albums, film soundtracks, live recording, sound reinforcement (BBC Worldwide). 

Joana Selome graduated in 2018 and is now based in her home country France. She is focusing on writing and developing herself as an artist in her own right.  Through her time at Abbey Road Institute Joana found working with her peers really pushed her forward creatively. Since finishing the course Joana has collaborated with other alumni from her class. These including composing and recording with Balazs Zalan Szabo at Pannonia Studio in Budapest. This also led to Joana working with Hungarian musicians – drummer, Iván Ágoston, and guitarist, Martinkó Tamás. Her experience studying music production and engineering really helped her get the most out of each session and understand the dynamics of the full recording process.

Joana is now working on multiple projects as an artist, including releasing music with fellow alumni Shez and as part of London based trip-hop band. Joana says: ‘The two years after the course taught me patience, gratitude and how to be realistic though indulgent with myself. And the latter actually made me create more. Eager to see what 2020 is going to teach me.”

Ed Shaw joined us to study music production and change the direction of his career. He had previously spent years performing in the West End in musicals such as Billy Elliot. Ed graduated from the Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering in October 2019 and has been working across multiple jobs since then. Ed juggles two studio jobs, working at Blank Media as a writer and engineer and in Denmark Street Studios as an engineer.

In addition to that, he also works in quality control of deliverables at FX Rentals. This involves checking producers mixes and masters deliveries for clients like Warner Music and Universal Music. Outside of these commitments, Ed is building his career as a freelance producer and engineer in his recently acquired studio in Bermondsey.

Gabriëlle Stok now works as an assistant engineer at the West-London studio SARM, which was established by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records. Since starting at SARM Gabrielle has been working on many sessions with both established and up and coming artists. Outside of her work there she also producing her own music to pitch to artists. Some of her highlights so far at SARM include working with American producer Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Jay Z, Mark Ronson), engineering during his writing sessions. Engineering has been her main focus since graduation, and Gabrielle also plans to maintain both work in production and songwriting as part of her future career plans.

You can find out more about Gabrielle’s experience at SARM in her interview on our blog.

Sinéad Storey graduated from Abbey Road Institute London in 2019 and went on to enrol on a degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of London. She says this was due to her being particularly inspired by her electronics lectures, taught by Nikolay Georgiev, so she decided to pursue this particular subject further. During her time studying with us, Sinead collaborated with her fellow students and went onto form band Harimau with class members Boris Massot and John Butcher. Their music is inspired by a variety of artists and genres from Lorde to Arctic Monkeys, Massive Attack, and Billie Eilish. Harimau started gigging and releasing their own music early in 2020.

Sinéad’s future ambition for the band is to continue writing, recording and releasing more music with the hopes of playing festivals and securing synchronisation opportunities for film and tv.

Adolfo Suarez graduated from our London school in 2018, and then returned to his home country of Spain. He now works at Berklee College of Music’s Valencia Campus as an Academic Technology Assistant. His main duties include overseeing and taking care of the studio facilities and the production rooms as well as being on hand to assist with troubleshooting during recording sessions. Having studied music production himself, Adolfo is in the ideal position to offer guidance and support to students that are new to music production and recording. One of the most rewarding parts of the job is when Adolfo observes students gaining confidence in the studio, which then helps inform and develop their ideas.

Outside of his role at Berklee, Adolfo is part of the rock band, Somos Trinidad who are working on new music with an album release. We’ll be sharing news on how they’re getting on our social media in the months to come.

Pedro Syrah graduated from our Advanced Diploma in 2018 and is now working as a freelance producer and engineer. His work encompasses many areas of production and music-making and he’s currently focussed on working with upcoming bands, producing, recording, mixing, and mastering their music. He says his job is to ‘Guide them, find the strengths in their work and add value’ wherever he can.

After studying with us Pedro undertook audio training at the BAFTA-winning post-production company The Farm Group where he collaborated with Director Libby Burke-Wilde (Royal Blood, David Gilmour, Daughter).

Highlights of his career so far include working with Grammy-Award winner Thomas Pridgen (Mars Volta) and after co-producing, recording, mixing, and mastering Steve Diggle’s (Buzzcocks) album “Station X”.

Outside of his freelance work, he is a bassist in the band Cosmic Kite, alongside Nick Hodgson (Kaiser Chiefs, Mark Ronson), Mark Collins (The Charlatans), and Ben Gordon (The Dead 60s). He is also building a studio in the heart of the Arrabida Natural Park, in Portugal, which will be the first residential studio in the country and will have a unique collection of vintage and modern gear available. His goal is to bring international artists to record and retreat in the middle of nature. Find out more about Pedro on his website.