MEET THE CREATIVES
With our combined expertise and a dedication to excellence, we’ve developed a reputation for delivering memorable and inspiring concerts to our audiences across the World. Led by producers Laura Stanford and Jess Cox, our passion is to create top-notch musical performances that are sure to captivate and engage our audience.
LAURA STANFORD
LSRO PRODUCER
Laura Stanford has shown herself to be an innovator, a ground-breaker, a trail-blazer and a unique force of nature in the modern music industry. Refusing to be bound by convention or style, rejecting the notion of being pigeon-holed by the traditions of classically trained music-making, Laura continues to make a mark both at home and abroad with an eclectic series of genre-busting projects.
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A highly skilled violinist, her entrepreneurial spirit began in 2011 with the founding of Q Strings with cellist Jess Cox and her sisters, Ellie and Amy Stanford, working with artists such as Ellie Goulding, Goldfrapp, Paul Weller, Brain Wilson, Clean Bandit, Sigma, Ocean Colour Scene, The Specials and Jamie Cullum. As an experienced and gifted arranger, she has collaborated with many internationally renowned artists to bring them the sound that they're looking for when incorporating classical strings into modern pop and rock music.
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Seeing the potential for the mixing of classically trained musicians and commercial, pop, hip-hop, rock and jazz music - she founded the London Symphonic Rock Orchestra in 2016. In 2021 - October 2023, LSRO became the orchestra that has taken the UK and Europe by storm performing as The Rock Orchestra.
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Ever the innovator, Laura was instrumental in the creation of an Electric/ acoustic Double Bass - transforming the sound and power, and revolutionising the sound of LSRO into the musical powerhouse for which it has become known, and has long-established relationships with both Roland and Bridge instruments, collaborating with their research and development teams and helping to push the boundaries of electro-acoustic instruments.
Laura's strength is her integrity, her determination, her problem-solving skills, her limitless energy and endless enthusiasm for creating new, interesting and innovative work and collaborating with the best the modern music industry has to offer. Already she has done so much, Laura's only getting started.
JESS COX
LSRO PRODUCER
Jess Cox is a multi instrumentalist, composer, arranger, co-founder of Q Strings and co - creator of The Rock Orchestra (2021 - October 2023) and producer.
Since graduating from The Royal Academy of Music, Jess has embraced a very varied musical career, actively seeking new ways to create and perform music, with a wide range of artists, across multiple musical genres. Cellist with Jeff Lynne’s ELO since 2016, Jess Cox has performed to audiences of more than 20,000 people at prestigious venues which include Madison Square Gardens, Wembley Stadium and Hollywood Bowl. She has made numerous TV and radio appearances and recorded for various films including; ‘Wonder Woman 1984’, ‘Dunkirk’, ‘Mission Impossible: Fall Out’ as well as the James Bond film ‘Spectre.’ She has performed live and recorded with artists which include: Bjork, Brian Wilson, Goldfrapp, Ellie Goulding, Kanye West, Cliff Richards, The Specials, The Zombies, Paul Weller, Pete Tong’s ‘Ibiza Classics’ Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, Bonobo, Years and Years, Stormzy, Spiritualised, Band of Skulls, Qawwali Project, Richard Ashcroft, Jorja Smith, and Ocean Colour Scene Live at Bridgewater Hall with Q Strings.
Jess has a passion for theatre and all things theatrical and regularly performs for; London’s West End, RSC, NT, NTS as well as with contemporary dance companies such as Sadler's Wells in the UK and abroad.
As a composer, her music has been played on numerous BBC programmes and she was nominated for a Production Music Award for her Japanese track ‘United’ which was used for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. As an innovative arranger Jess has written for artists including; Ocean Colour Scene, The Specials, Band of Skulls, P.P Arnold and S G Lewis and released her album ‘Shapes and Spaces’ an ‘experimental soundscape for a film that doesn’t exist’, predominantly using electric/acoustic cello with extended techniques.
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