Stephen Foster was educated at Magdalen College School and Magdalen College, Oxford (where he read Natural Science). He began to learn the violin at the age of six. His principal teacher during his teenage years was Dorothy Churton, herself a former pupil of Carl Flesch. He later studied with David Martin (Royal Academy of Music) and Manoug Parikian. Stephen led the City of Oxford Youth Orchestra from age 12 and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for three years. While at Oxford, he led various university orchestras and increasingly turned to performing chamber music, which remains his key musical interest. In his late 20’s Stephen founded a successful management consulting firm in London (from which he is now free), and his business and family commitments meant that he did not touch the violin for over a quarter of a century – though he did find time to get his golf handicap into single figures (just)! Oxford having played such a seminal part in his life, he is now happy to be doing a lot of his current music-making in “the other place”. Stephen is married, with four grown-up children, and lives in Hertfordshire. Photograph by Erja Atroshi