Neil Percy is the longest-serving Principal Percussionist of the London Symphony Orchestra and has been Head of Timpani and Percussion at the Royal Academy of Music since 2000. He has worked closely with many major artists and conductors and as a soloist with Sir Colin Davis, Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, François-Xavier Roth, Karl Jenkins, Ravi Shankar, Kent Nagano and Elgar Howarth. He has also worked closely with many composers for film scores and played on over 150 film scores, notably John Williams, James Horner, Patrick Doyle, Trevor Jones and Alexandre Desplat with their music for films such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, Braveheart, Notting Hill, Twilight: New Moon and Unbroken.

Neil has also enjoyed working with many major pop and jazz artists including Herbie Hancock, Elvis Costello, Natalie Cole, Dave Brubeck, Joe Zawinul, Tony Bennett, Luther Vandross, Vince Mendoza, and Laura Mvula. He is the Zildjian cymbals artist in residence, a Yamaha drums and keyboards artist, and an artist for Evans Drumheads and Freer Mallets.

He is also a part of the LSO Percussion Ensemble, made up of virtuoso players from the London Symphony Orchestra. Neil co-leads the group ‘Caixa’ with Paul Edmund-Davies which plays a blend of World/Jazz/Latin-flavoured music.

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Joe Locke is widely considered to be one of the major voices of his instrument. Long known to be a soloist capable of stunning physical power and broad emotional range, it was not until the last decade that he emerged as the composer, bandleader and conceptualist that he is considered today.

This is in no small part due to his solo projects since the early 2000s, notably ‘Four Walls of Freedom’, a six-movement suite featuring the late tenor saxophonist Bob Berg; ‘Live in Seattle’ (Origin) by The Joe Locke / Geoffrey Keezer Group which won the 2006 EarShot award for Concert of the Year and his eloquent and vibrant quartet ‘Force Of Four’ (Origin).

In 2011 Joe joined the Motéma label for four intrinsically different albums bearing witness of his immense stylistic versatility and ability to create artistic depth in a variety of contexts:
After ‘Signing’, the long-awaited follow-up studio album of ‘Live In Seattle’, 2012 also saw the release of Joe’s first ever symphonic project, ‘Wish Upon A Star’, featuring his quartet together with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra (NE), and the Jazz radio charts #1 Blues & Ballads album ‘Lay Down My Heart’ in 2013. In 2015 Locke released ‘Love Is A Pendulum’ - a suite based on a poem by Barbara Sfraga - is already being hailed as the most important work of his career.

Locke’s latest album, ‘Subtle Disguise’ (2018) is being celebrated “a crowning achievement from a certified vibraphone master” by Jazziz Magazine and means very much a happy continuation of his search to unite his love of composition with the connective qualities of melody and groove.

Joe Locke is a six-time recipient of the Jazz Journalists Association’s “Mallet Instrumentalist of the Year” Award and has won numerous further awards and polls. In 2016 he was honoured with the induction into the Music Hall of Fame of his hometown Rochester, NY. He is an active clinician and educator as a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music and holds the title of Honorary Associate of London’s Royal Academy Of Music (Hon ARAM).