About Me

Frances initially trained as a composer at York University in the early 1980s, where she encountered the Javanese gamelan and the Baroque violin. Moving to London in 1984, she became swept up in the authentic instrument movement in classical music, recording and touring all over the world with period instrument orchestras and chamber ensembles such as the Amati Ensemble, London Baroque, Gabrieli Consort, English Concert and Academy of Ancient Music.

In London, she met Betty Balcombe, and began to explore the whole subject of psychic and spiritual development, gradually learning what healing really means. She went on to train in massage, aromatherapy, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, and set up a practice alongside her musical work. For herself, she also studied yoga, qi gong and dao yin, and began to meditate with the British Daoist Association.

Frances soon became involved with the teaching and accreditation of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine, working at the London College of Traditional Acupuncture, and serving on the British Acupuncture Accreditation Board and the British Acupuncture Council education committee. Gradually, her healing work took over from professional performance. Abandoning the formality of classical music, Frances shifted her musical life into improvisation, learning to play folk music by heart.

Moving to Oxfordshire in 2011, Frances taught Chinese herbal medicine at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine and found a home for her healing practice at the Cholsey Complementary Health Centre in South Oxfordshire. Between 2014 and 2016, she travelled to China to study classical herbalism with Dr Feng Shi-Lun, and on her return, set up the School of Classical Chinese Herbalism to teach Jing Fang, classical Chinese herbal medicine. In 2025, SCCH achieved accreditation of its Jing Fang course, which is the first time such a course has been accredited in the West.

Frances’s exploration of health and wellness has never stopped. She applies all she learns to her practice and her teaching, and this now includes breathwork and sound healing. She has also never stopped being a musician, and is particularly happy to have got to the point of using sound in healing. She uses breath, improvised voice, gongs, handpans and other instruments in the journey towards letting go into balance and harmony, and enjoys sharing this with others, both in individual sessions and in group gatherings.