The Ruffians (Hester Dart, Amy Kearsley and Miranda Ostler) are a new music collective with a taste for the experimental and the absurd. They specialise in unaccompanied vocal repertoire and work with composers, as well as devising their own work. Since their debut in May 2022, they have been busy growing an audience in a variety of performance platforms across London, and were Highly Commended at the 2023 Gladys Puttick Memorial Prize for Improvisation. The Ruffians met at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, and have received coaching from Linda Hirst, Douglas Finch, Gregory Rose and Mary Wiegold. 

Recent credits include Acoustic Ruminations (Nozstock Festival, July 2024; Queen’s House, Greenwich, November 2023); Requiem Moderna by Barbs Dudek (Blackheath Halls, June 2024); A Woman's War by Kornélia Nemcová and Natália Štojková (Blackheath Halls, June 2024); Dreams and Variations (New Lights Festival, June 2023); FILTH (June 2023); In Good (Unac)Company (May 2023); and the premiere recording of Georgia Barnes’ Songs for Oppressed Voice and Prepared Piano (2022). They are looking forward to collaborating with a range of composers in 2024, including CN Lester.