| Strings Andrew Dean MMus, BMus, FRCO, ARCM Andrew’s musical life started at the age of seven on becoming a chorister at Westminster Cathedral. Here he had organ and piano lessons with Nicolas Kynaston, and by the time he was 12 he was regularly accompanying services in the Cathedral, gaining his first diploma at the age of 15. As a student at Edinburgh University he studied organ with Philip Sawyer and Peter Williams, also travelling to Haarlem for classes with Piet Kee.
Andrew has lived in Manchester since 1986 and has been Director of Music at both The Manchester Grammar School and Withington Girls’ School. He now teaches Academic Music and Organ at both Chetham’s School of Music and the Junior RNCM and is organ tutor for the Leek Churches Organ School. His work as organ recitalist and accompanist has, in recent times, taken him to many parts of Britain and Europe. He is also busy as an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music.
Andrew is well known for his work with choirs, both amateur and professional, and his choral workshops regularly attract large numbers of participants. He is Visiting Choral Director at Leeds Metropolitan University, where a recent performance of Messiah with a workshop chorus, soloists from Opera North and the Black Dyke Band received widespread acclaim. David Francis David combines an active performing life with work as an educationalist. As a harpsichordist his career spans the many facets of the instrument. His recital and concerto repertoire encompasses renaissance, baroque, classical and 20th century music. As a continuo player he has appeared with Britain’s leading orchestras and many distinguished soloists. He founded the leading period instrument chamber ensemble Musical Offering, with whom he toured and recorded for CD, television and radio. He has directed concerts with Manchester Camerata and Platform 4, as well as The Eighteenth Century Concert Orchestra. His experience as an educator spans secondary, further and higher education. He established Early Music Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, has taught harpsichord for a number of Universities and has been Head of School at a Sixth Form College. Currently he teaches at The Manchester Grammar School. David is an Associated Board Examiner and an adjudicator with Music for Youth.
Viviane Ronchetti
Viviane Ronchetti won a Junior Exhibition to the Royal Manchester College of Music to study the violin with the international concert artiste, Endre Wolf, at the age of 13. She became a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain a year later and ultimately, the NYO’s sub-leader. In 1966, Viviane was awarded a place to study music at Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music concurrently. She was a pupil of Professor Alexandre Mouskovsky at the RMCM and graduated with Bachelor of Music Degree with special Honours awarded in Performance. After graduating, Viviane studied with Manoug Parikian and started on a career combining teaching with free-lancing with the major London chamber orchestras. Viviane has held Head of Strings posts at Harrow School and Queenswood School and was a professor of violin at, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Junior department for five years from 2003-08. She is Director of the National Youth Strings Academy – founded in 1995 to promote the string orchestra repertoire and to develop the ensemble-playing skills of talented young string-players aged 9 to 21. She travels extensively in both the UK and overseas as a specialist strings adjudicator. Vocal John Powell Born in London, and educated in Somerset and at Cambridge University, John Powell has spent much of his life in Manchester. His musical activities have always centred around choirs and singers and he devotes his time to conducting, singing and teaching. Until 1988 he was Head of Choral Music at Chetham’s School of Music. He now teaches privately and is a tutor with the National Youth Choir. He is also very active as a Festival adjudicator.
John was for fifteen years Director of the Bolton Chamber Choir as well as a frequent Guest Conductor with Fleetwood Choral Society. His own chamber choir, the John Powell Singers, is heard regularly on BBC Radio and has toured recently in Estonia, Poland, northern Spain and Slovakia. In 2005 he took up an appointment as Musical Director of the Tatton Singers. John also directs choral workshops and conducts Bolton Festival Choir as well as training choirs for special events. Major projects in 2009 included conducting The Dream of Gerontius at the RNCM, a new commission in the Bolton Festival and training the chorus for Belshazzar’s Feast at the Bridgewater Hall.
A member of the BBC Northern Singers since 1975, and a founder-member of the Britten Singers, John has sung on Radio, TV and disc, and at the Proms, Aldeburgh and Harrogate Festivals as well as touring extensively abroad. He performs in recitals and oratorio and particularly enjoys exploring new and unusual repertoire. In 2010, the two hundredth anniversary of Robert Schumann's birth, his recitals will include performances of Dichterliebe. Sheila Kent M.Sc, GNSM, LTCL, Cert. Ed. Sheila Kent graduated from the Northern School of Music in Manchester before training as a teacher at Manchester University. She headed music departments in schools for over twenty years, teaching all ages, and now gives in-service training to other teachers, as well as being an associate tutor for Leicester University. The Festival movement has been part of Sheila’s life since she was a regular school-age competitor. She spent over 10 years on a Festival Committee, and still regularly enters her pupils for a wide range of classes. Sheila Kent plays chamber music and in orchestras on a freelance basis, conducts a long established choir, and has been musical director for amateur performances of many of the most popular musicals. She teaches vocal technique and a number of different instruments and is an examiner for both Music and Music Theatre for Trinity College, London. As an adjudicator she has worked at Music Festivals across the UK, and as far afield as Hong Kong and Zimbabwe. Recorder Terry Gill Terry Gill was born in Manchester and studied oboe and voice at the Northern School of Music, qualifying as a teacher at Bretton Hall. While in Manchester he sang as a member of the Halle Choir. He was Head of the Junior Department of the Minster School, Southwell which acts as the Choir School for Southwell Minster, where he also sang as a Tenor Lay Clerk. He has for many years tutored Recorder and Renaissance Wind on the Northumberland Viol and Recorder School, ( Norvis ) and for the past seven years has been Tutor Organiser to the course. In 2002 he was appointed to the International Adjudicators panel of the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival and has also adjudicated in music competitions around the Midlands. For over twenty years he has been Musical Director of the Nottinghamshire Branch of the Society of Recorder Players, and he is also on the Visiting Conductors panel of the SRP. Now retired after forty years as a classroom teacher, Terry is still teaching oboe for the Nottinghamshire Arts Support Service. Choral John Powell
Born in London, and educated in Somerset and at Cambridge University, John Powell has spent much of his life in Manchester. His musical activities have always centred around choirs and singers and he devotes his time to conducting, singing and teaching. Until 1988 he was Head of Choral Music at Chetham’s School of Music. He now teaches privately and is a tutor with the National Youth Choir. He is also very active as a Festival adjudicator.
John was for fifteen years Director of the Bolton Chamber Choir as well as a frequent Guest Conductor with Fleetwood Choral Society. His own chamber choir, the John Powell Singers, is heard regularly on BBC Radio and has toured recently in Estonia, Poland, northern Spain and Slovakia. In 2005 he took up an appointment as Musical Director of the Tatton Singers. John also directs choral workshops and conducts Bolton Festival Choir as well as training choirs for special events. Major projects in 2009 included conducting The Dream of Gerontius at the RNCM, a new commission in the Bolton Festival and training the chorus for Belshazzar’s Feast at the Bridgewater Hall.
A member of the BBC Northern Singers since 1975, and a founder-member of the Britten Singers, John has sung on Radio, TV and disc, and at the Proms, Aldeburgh and Harrogate Festivals as well as touring extensively abroad. He performs in recitals and oratorio and particularly enjoys exploring new and unusual repertoire. In 2010, the two hundredth anniversary of Robert Schumann's birth, his recitals will include performances of Dichterliebe.
| | Pianoforte Peter Lawson As one of Chetham’s most senior instrumental tutors, Peter Lawson has vast experience of developing the talents of young players as well as in a careers advisory role, assisting their progress towards university or conservatoire. As a player, Peter has appeared as soloist with orchestra, in recital or for radio throughout the UK and in Europe, Japan and Russia. With a repertoire stretching from the baroque to contemporary jazz, Peter’s many commercial recordings include Satie (for EMI and awarded a Silver Disc), American Sonatas (2 volumes for Virgin Classics, acknowledged by a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to the USA) and Michael Nyman’s concerto (with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra). He regularly works with the recorder player John Turner and the Equivox Trio (with Rob Buckland, saxophone and Simone Rebello, percussion). His most recent project is recreating the tango quintet performances of Piazzolla with the London Tango Quintet and Tango5 ensembles. Peter is also tutor in piano and tutor in contemporary piano at the RNCM, an examiner for the Associated Board and at various times, external examiner for Huddersfield, Sheffield, Napier universities and Birmingham Conservatoire. John Gough John Gough was born and bred in Chester and enjoys a busy and varied career, engagements have taken him to America (including Carnegie Hall, New York), Denmark, (with broadcasts on Danish radio) and throughout the United Kingdom. He has given frequent broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and also recorded for BBC Radio 2, Classic FM, World Service, S4CTV, and BBC TV. As a soloist he has appeared with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Halle soloists. He has performed at the Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall on several occasions and at the Buxton and Chester Festivals. Following his studies with Marjorie Clementi and Gordon Green at the Royal Northern College of Music the won several scholarships and prizes including he John Ireland Centenary Piano Competition at the Wigmore Hall As a chamber music player has given live broadcasts of the complete piano quartets of Brahms, Dvorak and Faure. He has given recitals at the Ribble Valley International Piano Week, a live broadcast from the Bridgwater Hall, Manchester and for many seasons was the soloist with the Performing Arts Symphony Orchestra in concerts at many stately homes throughout England. He made his screen debut with a brief appearance in the film ‘Hilary and Jackie’. He has appeared under such conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Edward Warren and Timothy Reynish and in concert with Martin Roscoe, Jane Irwin and Janet Hilton. He is currently Senior Tutor in Piano the RNCM and has acted as an examiner at the Royal Academy, Guildhall School and Manchester University. Instrumental Philip Dewhurst BA Hons PGCE
Philip Dewhurst was born and educated in Bolton, Lancashire. He read music at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne under Professor Denis Matthews and specialised in performance on the oboe. After completing his degree, he gained a Post Graduate Certificate of Education after which he went into full time teaching.
Philip gives occasional recitals and enjoys orchestral and chamber music playing on a freelance basis when his teaching commitments permit.
As well as adjudicating at music festivals around the country, Philip is an examiner for Trinity Guildhall and an experienced GCSE and A level examiner and moderator. At present he is Director of Music at a leading independent school in Cheshire. Sheila Kent M.Sc, GNSM, LTCL, Cert. Ed. Sheila Kent graduated from the Northern School of Music in Manchester before training as a teacher at Manchester University. She headed music departments in schools for over twenty years, teaching all ages, and now gives in-service training to other teachers, as well as being an associate tutor for Leicester University. The Festival movement has been part of Sheila’s life since she was a regular school-age competitor. She spent over 10 years on a Festival Committee, and still regularly enters her pupils for a wide range of classes. Sheila Kent plays chamber music and in orchestras on a freelance basis, conducts a long established choir, and has been musical director for amateur performances of many of the most popular musicals. She teaches vocal technique and a number of different instruments and is an examiner for both Music and Music Theatre for Trinity College, London. As an adjudicator she has worked at Music Festivals across the UK, and as far afield as Hong Kong and Zimbabwe. Speech and Drama
Susan L Mackay ALAM, LLAM, DDA For 10 years Susan ran The Fylde Stage School teaching all levels of RAD & ISTD dance and LAMDA Speech & Drama before graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama.
After seasons in Repertory Theatre, Touring and TV, she decided that it was time to realise other dreams. Sue now directs Upstage Drama teaching Speech and Drama, GCSE Drama and Upstage Young People’s Theatre. She directs Bare Boards Theatre Company and adjudicates at festivals all over the UK as well as abroad. She has recently taught “A” level Drama at Runshaw College, Leyland. In September 2004 she launched a successful pilot programme reaching out to disaffected Year Ten and Eleven pupils.
This September she is taking over the role of Performing Arts in the Community Co-ordinator at St Michael’s High School, providing the links between the School and the local Primary Schools.
Susan is an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals and a deputy on the Adjudicators Council.
Susan sees the role of Adjudicator as a combination of bringing new ideas and approaches to the text and the performance as well as fresh encouragement to every competitor. She feels that everyone should leave the Festival feeling that they have won. Maryrose Swarbrick Maryrose has worked extensively in the theatre from a very young age, in everthing grom pantomime to Shakespeare. She is currently Head of Drama at St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst College, a prestigious Catholic boarding school. However, musical theatre remains her first love; consequently, with the help of her daughters she runs a long-established school of performing arts and professional theatre company. Maryrose enjoys the roles of director and choreographer but as an actor herself she loves nothing more than encouraging the young (and not-so-young!) in all aspects of dance and drama. Ann Warr ANN WARR has been involved with drama and poetry for most of her life. She first started working for the BBC at the age of nine, later becoming involved in professional theatre both on stage and backstage. A teacher by profession, she has worked with all ages, from pre-school children to students at a performing arts college in Liverpool. She also advises in the art of public speaking, finding work in the professional and business communities. Work in Speech and Drama has taken her to many parts of the world and she has adjudicated at festivals in England, Ireland, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwee. Director, adjudicator, lecturer, teacher and examiner for Trinity Guildhall, London, Ann also “treads the boards” herself, being involved with plays from Shakespeare to pantomime.
Ann looks forward to visiting the Heaton Mersey Festival and to meeting all the people concerned - the performers and the “back stage” workers. She wishes everyone concerned a good Festival, and, above all, she says “enjoy yourselves and your work”.
| |