SINGING

Luise Horrocks MA (Oxon.), ARCM, PGCE, PGCA, Hon. TCL

After early studies on the piano and clarinet, Luise Horrocks graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English before moving on to study singing on an Advanced Studies Course at the Royal College of Music in London.

She has performed extensively as a Soprano Soloist throughout the UK and Europe. While specialising primarily in Oratorio, she has also given many Song Recitals and has appeared on the opera stage at Buxton Opera House. She has also sung in a series of concerts and Recitals in South Africa and the USA and her wide repertoire extends from works by Monteverdi to Stravinsky.

 She has made several recordings and her BBC broadcasts include performances of Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Creation and works by Goehr. Luise has held positions as a teacher in both the Junior and Senior departments of the Birmingham Conservatoire and as a visiting lecturer at Birmingham University.

 She is now the singing teacher for the undergraduate and postgraduate student choral scholars at Keble College, Oxford and also runs an extensive private teaching practice. She is regularly asked to give Master classes, choral workshops, presentations and teacher sessions both at home and abroad and has worked as a Vocal Coach on several residential courses for singers and as a mentor on the CT ABRSM teacher training course.

 She has also coached and conducted the Wyre Forest Young Voices choir and worked as an external moderator for Artis, a company providing performing arts projects in schools. As Associate Chief Examiner in Music for Trinity College London, Luise travelled extensively and worked on syllabus setting, training and standardising the examiner panel, planning and delivering conferences and designing Aural and Improvisation tests.

 Now working as a freelance consultant, she continues to have special responsibility for singing at Trinity and is leading projects with examiner training and teacher support. She has recently run a series of singing workshops in Dubai and publications include a series of books of Musical Theatre repertoire with colleague John Gardyne, choosing songs and writing the teaching notes for two new sets of graded song books and recently, compiling two books of diploma songs. In 2016 she was awarded an Hon TCL.

 She is a highly experienced adjudicator member of the British & International Federation of Festivals and was privileged to be an adjudicator for the inaugural Olga and Jules Craen Young Musician of the Year award in Mumbai, India and for the first Maltese Islands Festival in Valletta, Malta as well as adjudicating and running workshops at the Singapore Performing Arts Festival.

PIANOFORTE

Angela Zanders

Angela Zanders was born in London and started piano lessons with her father, New Zealand pianist, Douglas Zanders. She went on to study at The Purcell School, Trinity College of Music and Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. She also won an Austrian Government Scholarship for study at the Hochschule für Musik, Vienna. At Trinity College, where she studied with Joseph Weingarten, Angela won many competitions and awards. She later studied chamber music with Murray Perahia, William Pleeth and Raphael Wallfisch.

Angela has performed all over the UK, including venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall, South Bank, St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields and at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff. She has broadcast for BBC Radio 3 and has given performances throughout Europe and in Australia and New Zealand, both as soloist and accompanist and as pianist in the Solarek Piano Trio, which she formed in 1992. For ten years Angela was accompanist at the Centre for Young Musicians in London. She does a great deal of freelance accompanying and has worked with many internationally acclaimed singers and instrumentalists.

Angela has a special interest in promoting the accessibility of classical music and has been giving lecture recitals for many years. She has lectured in Music Appreciation for Birkbeck College, University of London and for the WEA and U3A in Hampshire and currently runs her own classes in Music Appreciation in Hampshire and West Sussex.

Angela has been a lecturer at the University of Chichester since 2010 and is an adjudicator for The British and International Federation of Festivals.

WOODWIND AND BRASS & EDNA HEAD AWARD FINAL

Gillian Johnston

Gillian Johnston is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Her freelance bassoon playing was combined with a busy teaching career, and she created Harpenden Musicale. This was a music school for all ages and abilities, which grew very quickly to a membership of one thousand pupils a week. Musicale teaches pupils in its premises, and also has an outreach programme for local primary schools, as well as summer music courses at various locations. All this is serviced by the Musicale Retail Shop.

Gill was also a co-founder of the National Children’s Wind and Chamber Orchestras of Great Britain. Gill has always been passionately interested in encouraging children to ‘make music’ and thoroughly enjoys adjudicating at festivals all over the country and abroad. Gill has four children, all of whom are professional musicians.

STRINGS

Martin Wallington

Martin has recently retired from playing the Viola with the BBC Philharmonic, after 36 years in the job. A graduate of Chetham's School Of Music and The Royal Northern College Of Music, he has enjoyed an exciting and fulfilling career playing in many of the finest concert halls in Europe, North and South America, China and Japan, as well as the BBC Proms and all the major concert venues in the UK.

Martin is hugely committed to his involvement in music education. He regularly advises senior students at the beginning of their professional career, and was for a number of years a Mentor for the BBC Philharmonic/RNCM Professional Access Scheme, where students spend time working alongside their mentor in the professional working environment. In addition to his playing commitments, he has always had a busy private teaching practice, as well as teaching for a number of years in the Music Department at Manchester University.

Martin has been increasingly in demand as an Adjudicator both at school music competitions and at a number of regional music festivals. He loves encouraging young people on their 'journey' to discovering the joy of making live music.

Away from music, Martin is a fluent French speaker and loves 'escaping' to France on holiday. He is a keen walker and will often be found hiking around the Yorkshire Wolds where he now lives with his wife (a cello teacher), 2 huge cats and 2 crazy dogs!

SPEECH AND DRAMA

Dr. Anita Downey Phd. MA. LCSM. LLAM. FVCM(Hons). Dip ESB. MSTSD

Anita began her career as an academic studying at Oxford and Nottingham Universities. After qualifying as a teacher she worked in both Primary and Secondary schools. She happily combined her academic teaching with her love of the Arts. She trained as a Drama Teacher at Guildhall School of Speech and Drama and Central School of Speech and Drama.

Pioneering the integration scheme for Surrey and also working with profoundly deaf youngsters, she then set up a Creative Arts Program for them.

Winning the International Professor Van Lawrence Award for her research into Voice Sounds led her to research further for her PhD, "The Cultural Rhythms of the World.' This has led to her working with such diverse disciplines as:
Formula 1, Opera, The Stock Exchange and with International speakers.
Anita not only teaches but examines and adjudicates all over the world. She is a member of STSD and an adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals.

EDNA HEAD AWARD - PRELIMINARY ROUND

Graeme Humphrey ARAM

Graeme has been a teacher of piano all his professional life, both at the Royal Academy of Music for thirty-six years from 1974 – 2010, and privately. He has also been very actively involved in festival adjudicating and examining – work which has taken him all over the world.

He was awarded an Associated Board Scholarship on the piano from New Zealand to study at the Royal Academy of Music. He regularly teaches in Hong Kong, and was external examiner at National Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore from 2009 – 2011.

In 1988 he founded the Blackheath Music Festival in London. From 1993 – 2010 he tutored at the Shrewsbury International Summer School and was Music Director of the Summer School from 2004 – 2010.

In 1997 he was elected Warden of the Private Teachers’ Section of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and in 2002 was elected President of the Royal Academy of Music Club.

Graeme has recently been involved in the selecting and editing of a major new piano duet project that is republishing long out-of-print beginner and intermediate level duet material, primarily for the pupil/teacher. This can be seen at www.fourhandsplus.com.

Graeme is both a Fellow and an adjudicator member of The British and International Federation of Festivals.