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Emanuel Trophy Piano Competition
Vanessa Latarche ARCM, FTCL is an international pianist who has won several competitions and scholarships and spent time studying in the USA and in France. Her performances have been the subject of BBC broadcasts and have been recorded. Vanessa is Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal College of Music. She is founder member of “Children Helping Children’s Concerts” raising money for children’s charities.
Dennis Lee was born in Penang, Malaysia. At the age of 14, he won an Associated Board scholarship to study violin and piano (with Angus Morrison) at the Royal College of Music, London. There he won many prizes as well as the Tagore Gold Medal for the most outstanding student. In 1967 he was awarded the Bachelor of Music degree from London University with the only first class honours given for that particular syllabus. The next year, he attained the Master of Music degree from the Royal College. Dennis Lee has broadcast frequently for the BBC. He performs widely in the USA, Canada, Europe and South-east Asia. He is also in demand as examiner, lecturer and festival adjudicator. He has judged the Canadian Music Competition (Finals) in Toronto, as well as the London International Piano Competition. In 2006, in Los Angeles, he was Artist in Residence at the convention of the Music Teachers’ Association of California. Presently he holds the same position at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore. Future engagements include recitals in Britain, Canada, the USA and the Far East.
Piano
Frank Wibaut is an international pianist and teacher. He has played in over thirty countries and performed fifty-five concertos with orchestras all over the world. He was Professor of piano at the RCM and the RAM and the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. Now back in London he is a visiting Professor in eleven countries and a jury member of many international competitions.
Gill Cracknell LRAM studied piano and voice with Guy Jonson and Joy Mammen at the Royal Academy of Music. As chamber pianist and accompanist she has performed in Britain, France and Germany. Her refreshing and innovative approach and deep commitment to working with young musicians have made her much in demand as a teacher. She has taught at the Arts Education School, the King’s School Canterbury, Harrow, King’s College Choir School Cambridge, St Paul’s Girls’ School, RADA and RCM(Jnr Dept), and adjudicated post-graduate keyboard prizes at the Royal Academy. She is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians and a Governor of the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain.
Graeme Humphrey came from New Zealand on a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music, where he developed particular interests in chamber music, accompanying and teaching. He has broadcast many times on Radio 3 and performed at the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room and throughout the UK. Since 1974 he has been a Professor at the RAM; he travels the world teaching, adjudicating and examining, and also maintains a substantial private teaching practice. He is Music Director of the Hereford International Summer School.
Ian Jones ARCM BMus DipRCM was awarded a scholarship to study the piano at the Royal College of Music where he has won all the main prizes including the prestigious Chappell Gold Medal. Ian continued his studies in the USA and Canada, and the French Government awarded him an unprecedented scholarship to spend a year in Paris. In 1993 he was a prize winner at the Leeds International Piano Competition and was awarded the accolade of the title ‘Steinway Artist’. His CD recordings have been broadcast all over the world, and he now combines his highly successful performing career with teaching (currently at RCM Jun. Dept. and Purcell School), examining and occasionally composing. He is now Assistant Head of Keyboard Studies at RCM.
Choirs & Vocal Ensembles
Beryl Foster is a graduate of London University and studied singing principally with Ranken Bushby, first in Colchester and then at the Royal College of Music. She has sung in recital, concert and oratorio in London and many parts of the country, teaches privately and is an experienced adjudicator. As well as singing all the standard repertoire, Beryl specialises in the performance of Norwegian art-song. She has written definitive books on Grieg’s songs (1990, revised reissue 2007) and his choral music (1999) and has contributed articles to many international journals. Her recitals, lectures and workshops on Norwegian song have taken her around Britain, as well as to Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the United States and China. She has produced three volumes of Grieg’s songs with her own singing translations and Three Norwegian Carols for ladies’ voices (Lindsay Music). Beryl has provided translations for the Associated Board and the introductions to each of the songs in the Grieg Centenary Song album (Peters 2007). She has also translated into English a substantial book on the Norwegian composer Ludvig Irgens Jensen. She is currently Chairman of the Grieg Society of Great Britain and Vice President of the International Grieg Society.
Singing
Penelope Mackay AGSM, HonARAM was born in Yorkshire and trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. Having spent most of her professional career in opera (Glyndebourne, English National Opera, Covent Garden, Opera North, Flanders, Liège, Graz, New Opera Company, English Opera Group and English Music Theatre), she began her teaching career in 1988, combining it with performances at Covent Garden (Cunning Little Vixen) and Her Majesty’s Theatre (Phantom of the Opera). Until June 2008 she was responsible for coaching in French Song at the Royal Academy of Music and French diction and phonetics both there and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Although now reducing her teaching commitments, she is still a professor of singing in both institutions. She has recently been involved with the Britten Pears Young Artists programme at Snape Maltings, coaching on the opera, oratorio and French song courses.
Strings - Solo & Duet
William Bruce is Head of Strings at the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has performed all the major cello concertos with orchestras and given recitals throughout the UK as well as in Europe, Australia and America, including a Carnegie Hall debut recital in 2005. A passionate music educator and Director of The Cello Club of Great Britain he is much in demand for masterclasses and workshops and runs a residential summer school for cellists each year. He has been a member of Council and Management Committee of the European String Teachers Association, sits on the advisory panel for the Violoncello Society of London and is a Consultant Moderator for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, covering mentoring, training and moderating examiners, syllabus selection and development, presentations and appointments. William has played in the orchestra of English National Opera for 25 years.
Hilary Sturt was born in New Zealand and started learning the violin in America. She completed her studies in London with David Takeno and Felix Andrievsky, graduating from Guildhall and the Royal College of Music with solo, chamber, and contemporary music prizes. She is much in demand as a teacher, adjudicator and conductor. Hilary is Head of Strings at St Paul’s Girls’ School, Professor at the Royal College of Music, has coached and conducted the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, Imperial College Symphony Orchestra and the National Children’s Orchestra, plus teaching at many chamber music courses for children and adults. Most recently she was appointed a Diploma Examiner for the Associated Board, elected a trustee of Youth Music Centre, Barnet, and appointed to the Council of the European String Teachers Association.
Elizabeth Turnbull was born in Kaikoura, New Zealand. After a short period as a member of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra she was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Scholarship to further her studies in London. She studied with Nicholas Roth and Peter Schidlof of the Amadeus Quartet. She gave her debut recital at the Purcell Room and became principal viola in the London Mozart Players. Teaching has always been a particular interest for Elizabeth. She was Head of String Faculty at Trinity College, London, from 1993 to 1999. Since relinquishing that post she continues as Professor of Viola and String Chamber Music. She has given numerous classes and workshops in the British Music conservatoires, Europe, America and New Zealand. In addition to working with young professionals Elizabeth has a great interest in helping late starters and ‘born again’ violinists and viola players. She regularly holds a workshop for the Jackdaws Education Trust and devotes time to teaching adults in London. She is presently in the process of writing a viola tutor.
Instrumental Ensembles & Orchestras
Gill Johnston studied the Bassoon with Archie Camden and Roger Birnstingle at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After a period of freelance playing at home and abroad she concentrated on a teaching career, before moving to Harpenden where together with her husband, David Johnston, she established her own Music School, Harpenden Musicale. From small beginnings, Musicale has grown into one of the largest institutions of its type in this country, known as Musicale Ltd. (www.musicale.co.uk). As well as the day to day running of the Music School, Gill arranges holiday music courses (Musicale Holidays), competitions and the Harpenden Summer Music Festival. Gill is the founder and Musical Director, of the National Children’s Wind Orchestra and associated groups (www.ncwo.org.uk). She is increasingly in demand as an adjudicator and very much enjoys the contact with the young musician and seeing lots of new places around the country! She has four children, all of whom are musicians, sons Magnus, violinist and BBC New Generation Artist; Guy, cellist, BBC Young Musician 2000 and daughter Izzy who plays in Escala, finalists in Britain’s Got Talent 2008.
Woodwind and Brass
Paul Harris has established an international reputation as one of Britain’s leading music educationalists. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the August Manns Prize for outstanding performance in clarinet playing. He has taught in many institutions in the UK, the USA, the Far East, New Zealand and Australia. Paul has also undertaken research into specialist music education for the highly talented. He has over six hundred publications to his name, most being concerned with music education through which he has assisted hundreds of thousands of young players worldwide to develop their vital musical skills. He writes for many national and international journals and even made an appearance in the final Inspector Morse novel!
Harps
Rachel Masters has been Principal Harp with the London Philharmonic Orchestra since 1989, with whom she performs in London, Glyndebourne and internationally. In 1982 she made her debut at the Wigmore Hall, to critical acclaim, and since then has played as a soloist with this country’s leading orchestras and chamber ensembles. She has recorded concerti by Alwyn, Ginanstera and Gliere for Chandos Records with Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia. Other recordings include Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with Philippa Davies, Panufnik’s Sinfonia Concertante for Flute and Harp with Karen Jones, Britten’s Ceremony of Carols with the Choristers of King’s College Cambridge, and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro and Debussy’s Danses Sacree et Profane with the Ulster Orchestra and Jan Pascal Tortelier, a recording highly recommended on Radio 3’s CD Review. Rachel studied the harp with Sidonie Goossens and later with Marisa Robles at the Royal College of Music. She is now a Professor at the RCM where she has recently been specialising in the coaching of orchestral repertoire.
Bryn Lewis has been Principal Harpist with the London Symphony Orchestra since 1994, prior to this he was Principal with the Philharmonia Orchestra. He has also played with all the main London orchestras, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Leipzig Gewandhaus and with the Berlin Philharmonic. He has played on numerous film soundtracks including Braveheart, Star Wars, Harry Potter and recently, Kung Fu Panda, The Dark Knight and Coco Before Chanel. As a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, Bryn has appeared with the LSO, Philharmonia Orchestra, Soloists of Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Nash Ensemble, Hebrides Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, Northern Sinfonia, and Orqueasta Cadaques in Britain, Europe, Asia, Russian Federation and South America. Bryn is a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and has given masterclasses in London, Chicago and Rio de Janeiro. His own main studies were with Jean Bell, Barbirollis’ Harpist in the Halle Orchestra and Renata Scheffel-Stein (a pupil of Tournier and a former LSO Principal) who was appointed to The Philharmonia Orchestra by Herbert von Karajan.
Composition
Alison Cox FRSA has developed national and international links with a large number of professional ensembles and organisations including UNESCO, the London Sinfonietta, the Nash Ensemble, the Royal Over-Seas League, the International Federation of Musicians and many Commonwealth organisations. She also collaborates regularly with musicians and composers from all over the world, and is Founder and Musical Director of ‘The Commonwealth Resounds!’ In addition she is Head of Composition at the Purcell School for Young Musicians and creates and runs many outreach programmes in the community.
Graham Bennett BMUS, LRAM, PGCE studied piano, theory and composition at the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Royal Northern College of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music in London where he was awarded the Associated Board Entrance Scholarship. During this time he won many prestigious prizes and performed extensively in the United Kingdom and abroad as a soloist and chamber musician. In 2001 Graham studied for a PGCE at the Institute of Education, University of London to obtain Qualified Teacher Status which enabled him to broaden his teaching experiences working with students in mainstream schools across North London and he is Head of Theory and Composition at the Youth Music Centre. Graham is also the author, composer and publisher of the ‘Music Master Series’, a collection of Educational Music Books specialising in composition, theory and performance.
Speech and Drama
Stephen R Owen BA (Hons), BA (Ed), PGDip (Ed), MA, MEd, FRSA, FESB, FLCM, LRAM, LGSM (Perf), LTCL (Perf), LLCM(TD), LLAM (Hons), ATCL, Cert Ed trained as a teacher of Drama, Speech and Movement at Trinity and All Saints’ College, University of Leeds. After qualifying, he went on to study with Eliner Rutherford, gaining specialist diplomas in the teaching and performance of all aspects of Speech and Drama Studies. As well as being responsible for Drama at the schools in which he worked, he also taught pupils of all ages and abilities privately, from complete beginners to Licentiate and Fellowship diploma level. He became an examiner for The English Speaking Board and The Poetry Society and enjoyed adjudicating at many festivals throughout the country. In April 1985, he was promoted to the headship of a primary school in Derbyshire. Since retiring in July 2007, he has been appointed as an examiner for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), has become a Council Member of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama and has resumed his work as an Adjudicator Member of the British and International Federation of Festivals.