Theresa Goble is an internationally acclaimed voice teacher in great demand. She is a Professor of Vocal Studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London and a Higher Education Academy fellow. As well as also teaching privately in London, she has teaching practices in Switzerland and Germany.

She is also co-founder of award winning vocal coaching organisation Vox Integra, a company providing specialised career development courses for students and professionals in the vocal arts throughout Europe and the UK. www.voxintegra.com

Regarded for her holistic approach, Theresa’s own insights as performer and teacher draw on traditional Bel Canto technique as well as educational kinesiology, brain gym, and inner game principles. Her interest in how students learn led her to conduct a research project to assess the effectiveness of the use of educational kinesiology in assisting the learning of developing musicians during conservatoire study.

Theresa has represented the UK conservatoires in international masterclasses, teaches at summer schools and is frequently engaged as an examiner, audition panellist and adjudicator.

Her students both present and past can be found performing on the stages of Opera houses and concert halls throughout the world.

picture – Allan Watson

Emma Kirkby’s singing career came as a surprise. As a student of Classics at university she was a keen member of choirs and ensembles, – with   the particular good fortune to sing with “historical” instruments known to Renaissance and Baroque composers, the lute, harpsichord, early piano, wind and string instruments, whose sound and human scale drew from her an instinctive response. She was then briefly a school-teacher, until offers of work as a singer tempted her away. Since that time, she has built long partnerships with individual colleagues and groups of all sizes, in Britain and worldwide.

Classic FM listeners voted her artist of the year in 1999; in 2000 she was appointed an OBE, and in 2007 became a Dame.  Most recently she was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music (2011).

Amazed by all this, she is nevertheless glad of the recognition it implies, for a way of music making that values ensemble, clarity and stillness above the more common factors of volume and display, and above all she is grateful still to be sharing this marvellous repertoire with talented performers, old and young.

Emma has been visiting professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for several decades, and taught in summer schools worldwide, the most regular being Dartington, Neuburg-an-der Donau (Germany), Vorau, (Austria) and Federico Cesi, (Umbria).

Rhiannon Llewellyn was born in Swansea and raise in the UK, USA and France. Rhiannon trained at the Royal Academy of Music Opera School with Lillian Watson and Jonathan Papp and now continues to study with Janice Chapman and Carlos Conde Gonzalez.

Awards include the 2013 Maggie Teyte Prize and Miriam Licette Award at the Royal Opera House, 2013 Garsington Opera Leonard Ingrams Award, First Prize at the 2014 MOCSA Young Welsh Singer Competition, 2014 John Kerr Award for Early English Song, 2015 AESS Patricia Routledge National English Song Competition and 2014 Dunraven Young Welsh Singer Award.

Operatic engagements include Sandman Hänsel und Gretel, Lace Seller Death in Venice, Anna (cover) Intermezzo (all Garsington Opera), Frantik The Cunning Little Vixen, (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Dalinda Ariodante, Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress, Nella Gianni Schicchi, Erste Dame Die Zauberflöte (cover)(all Royal Academy Opera), Armida Rinaldo (Longborough Festival Opera), Cesare Catone in Utica (Dartington), Gala The Shadow of the Wave (Tète-â-Tète Festival), Dalinda (cover) Ariodante (Scottish Opera) and Euridice (cover) in Orfeo & Euridice (English National Opera).

Recital highlights include programmes at The Royal Opera House Crush Room, Madrid’s Real Academia de Belles Artes, St. John’s Smith Square, Gower Music Festival, Cardiff Music Festival, Gloucester Cathedral, Colston Hall, and in Istanbul. Concert highlights include Serenade to Music under Vladamir Jurowski with Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall, a programme of Handel Arias and Duets under Laurence Cummings (Kings Place), Bernstein’s Mass under Kristjan Järvi (Royal Albert Hall, BBC Proms), Charlie Barber’s Afrodisiac (Purcell Room), Mozart’s Requiem under Paul Spicer (St. Martin-in-the-Fields), Orff’s Carmina Burana (St. David’s Hall), Orff’s Carmina Burana under Howard Williams (Colston Hall – National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain), Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle under Jonathan Wilcocks (Chichester Cathedral), Mahler’s 8th Symphony (Bristol Sinfonia), Handel’s Messiah (Llandaff Cathedral – Welsh Sinfonia), Bach’s St. John Passion (St. Martin-in-theFields – Choir of Christ College, Cambridge), and Poulenc Gloria (Colston Hall).

Rhiannon lives in Putney with her husband, baby son and faithful greyhound, Zarziyr. When not singing herself, Rhiannon runs a successful teaching studio, is the Musical Director of South London Military Wives Choir and is a busy Vicar’s Wife!

© Rhiannon Llewellyn – 2020 – no changes or alterations to be made without the consent of the artist. 384 words

Penny Jenkins trained as a ballet dancer before studying singing at Trinity College of Music. She has sung Oratorio throughout the South of England, broadcast for the B.B.C. and recorded solos with the Oriana Consort and the Brighton Chamber Choir. As a soloist with New Sussex Opera and Regency Opera she has sung many roles in operas as diverse as The Fairy Queen, The Threepenny Opera, Suor Angelica, Iolanthe and The Magic Flute. She also took part in the world premiere of Howard Blake’s opera The Station.

In recent years Penny has built up a considerable reputation as a singing teacher. Her pupils now come to her from all over the country and regularly win major prizes in competitive festivals and achieve top marks in the Associated Board examinations. She has successfully trained pupils for Choral Scholarships at Oxbridge, and for entrance to Music and Drama Colleges. She even has pop-singers on her books!

For the last twenty years she has been a tutor at many summer music courses, including AIMS (held at Eastbourne College), which she ran with her husband Neil Jenkins. She is increasingly in demand for vocal workshops and masterclasses and takes two courses a year at Jackdaws Educational Trust. Since 2000 she has been co-director of a course for aspiring young singers at the Vocal Arts Institute of Indianapolis, USA. In 2002 and again in 2007 Penny was Musician in Residence at a music project in the West Country. Since 2005 she has been working as a voice coach in the world of film and TV. She is also much in demand as an Adjudicator at competitive festivals.

Jonathan studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Atar Arad and Mischa Geller and was awarded all the major prizes for viola. He graduated with distinction in 1983 and was immediately offered a position with the English Chamber Orchestra where he was appointed co-principal viola in 1988. He was sponsored by the ECO Music Society in his London recital debut at the Purcell Room, and he has since regularly played concertos with the orchestra.

As a very versatile artist, Jonathan has managed a varied career and is much in demand as a soloist and chamber musician both in the UK and abroad.

He has subsequently worked with most of the London Orchestras and has guest led the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, London Mozart Players and BBC viola sections.

He has worked with many chamber groups including Capricorn, Divertimenti, Raphael, Gaudier and Primavera ensembles and has given Quartet concerts with William Pleeth, James Galway and Kiri Ta Kanawa.

In 1995 Jonathan left the English Chamber orchestra to join the Allegri String Quartet. After six years with the quartet he returned to the ECO as principal viola.

He is a professor of viola at the Royal College of Music and the Junior Academy of Music.

Viola by: Giovanni and Francesco Grancino c.1680

Sally Pryce is much in demand as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. She is principal harp with the Aurora Orchestra, with whom she has been a participant in a wide variety of projects from full symphonic performances at the BBC Proms to being a regular chamber performer for their popular Far Far Away concerts for children. As a freelance orchestral musician, Sally regularly guests with orchestras including the RPO, BBC Symphony and Concert orchestras, John Wilson Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and at the Royal Opera House.

Her concerto work has included performances of Debussy’s Danses with the Northern Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia and Orchestra of the Swan. With Adam Walker (flute) she has performed Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic and Bournemouth Orchestras and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (Mostly Mozart Festival, Barbican).

Sally was the solo harpist for a critically acclaimed series of performances of Britten’s Canticles with Ian Bostridge. Other highlights include numerous concerts at the Wigmore Hall with various groups including with the Nash Ensemble as well as her own group (Sally Pryce Ensemble), world premieres at the Presteigne festival and BBC Radio 3 broadcasts of performances from the Cheltenham Festival.

Caryl Thomas heads an exciting and thriving harp department at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. She made her American debut in 1981 at Carnegie Hall, her London debut at the Wigmore Hall a year later, and has performed to critical acclaim throughout the UK, Europe, the USA and the Far East. She graduated from the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff and gained a Master’s degree from New York University; her teachers were Ann Griffiths, Marisa Robles, Pearl Chertok and Susann McDonald. At 17 years old, Caryl was the first British harpist to win a major prize at the International Harp Contest in Jerusalem, and in 1996, was invited to give a solo recital at the World Harp Congress in Copenhagen.

Caryl has performed as concerto soloist with the London Philharmonic, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square, and has appeared twice as concerto soloist with the Mozarteum Orchestra in the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. During a period as harpist with the London Philharmonic, Caryl worked with eminent conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Klaus Tennstedt, Leonard Slatkin, Sir Bernard Haitink and Sir Charles Mackerras, and played the Bartok Festival at the Royal Festival Hall under the baton of Sir George Solti.

Caryl’s discography includes the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto with the London Philharmonic, a solo recital entitled Clair de Lune, and a collection of chamber works with the Prometheus Ensemble named French Impressions. Her broadcasting work includes recitals for Radio 3 and three series of her own television programme for S4C.

In 2007, Caryl was Artistic Director of the 7th European Harp Symposium and in June 2016, sat on the jury of the 10th USA International Harp Competition. Caryl is a member of the Board of Directors of the World Harp Congress, and will Chair the Host Committee of the 14th World Harp Congress in Cardiff in July 2020.

Allan Clay is a pianist, organist, conductor and composer, with long experience in education and as an adjudicator. He was educated in Essex and went on to the Royal Academy of Music, London, studying piano with Alexander Kelly, organ with Christopher Bowers-Broadbent and composition with Roger Steptoe. After graduating, he worked as a freelance musician and was the founding conductor of the Surrey Sinfonietta (now the London Camerata) who gave the first performance of his Oboe Concerto with Hilary Dennis. In the mid-90s, Allan joined the staff of Felsted School, and subsequently has been Director of Music in schools in the South of England, as well as at Harrow School, Bangkok, where also he worked with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Zambia and Vietnam. He examines extensively for ABRSM, both in the UK and internationally, and is delighted to be adjudicating at this year’s Festival.

Eva Maria Doroszkowska is an international pianist whose dramatic and colourful interpretations have earned her high acclaim.

She enjoys a busy teaching and performing schedule which takes her round the world. She has appeared on BBC and Polish television and radio.

A keen interest in contemporary music, she has worked with two of the 20^th Century’s finest composers, Gorecki and Per Norgard.

Eva is passionate about chamber music and has worked with various ensembles from string quartet to jazz and pop. She has been teaching at the Royal Academy Junior Department since 2001 and enjoys a varied life as soloist, teacher, accompanist and festival adjudicator.  She won a scholarship to study at the Katowice Szymanowski Academy in Poland, also studying in Amsterdam, Holland and a travel bursary for Soloist Masters Class in Copenhagen. She won a scholarship for her undergraduate studies at the Royal Northern.

Alongside her performing, teaching and adjudication work, Eva Maria has worked closely with Alexander Technique for the last 15 years and writes for International Piano Magazine.

Photo © Roger Harris

One of Britain’s most creative and distinctive pianists, Julian Jacobson is acclaimed for the vitality, colour and insight he brings to his enormous repertoire ranging across all styles and periods. Following early acclaim as a duo and ensemble pianist performing with many leading British and international soloists, he has gained increasing admiration as a penetrating and imaginative soloist. His 70th birthday was marked by a series of four recitals at St John’s Smith Square, where he was invited to return in August 2020 to perform the Liszt B minor Sonata in a series of concerts marking the reopening of the hall.

His reputation as an important Beethoven pianist was cemented by a whole series of sonata cycles, beginning in 1994. He has now presented the cycle ten times, most recently at the festival ‘Beethoven in Altaussee’ in Austria where he also presented the complete cello and piano works with Adrian Brendel. Three of these cycles were ‘marathon’ performances where he performed the complete 32 sonatas, from memory, in a single day (2003, 2004 and 2013); the 2013 performance, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields London, was broadcast world wide and received rave reviews. He is currently recording the cycle. He is Chairman and Artistic Director of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe.

Julian Jacobson has performed at the leading UK festivals including Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Bath, Brighton, Cheltenham, Dartington, Huddersfield, Norwich, Prussia Cove on tour, and Belfast Sonorities. His international career has taken him to more than forty countries on five continents. Concerto appearances include London Symphony, BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham, English Chamber, London Mozart Players, London Sinfonietta, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Bucharest Philharmonic, Icelandic Symphony and Royal Omani Symphony Orchestras. A large and varied discography for labels including Decca Argo, Chandos, Hyperion, Meridian, BIS, Naxos, Continuum and SOMM includes acclaimed recordings of Balakirev, Dvorak, Martinu, the complete sonatas of Carl Maria von Weber and duo sonatas of Brahms and Enesco.

Composers who have written for him include Robert Saxton, Simon Bainbridge, Benedict Mason, Philip Cashian, Daryl Runswick, Charles Camilleri and Keith Tippett. Michael Nyman wrote the trio “Time Will Pronounce” for his former ensemble the Trio of London, recorded on Decca Argo. In 1987 he gave the acclaimed UK premiere of Ligeti’s now famous Etudes Book 1; a subsequent BBC recording was highly praised by the composer. A composer himself, his works are published by Bardic Edition and Faber. His transcriptions of Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and Second Rhapsody have received rave reviews and many performances: he recorded them for SOMM in August 2020 with his regular duo partner Mariko Brown, due for release in June 2021. He has also composed and conducted five film scores including “To The Lighthouse” (1983) and “We Think The World Of You” (1988).

Julian studied from the age of seven with Lamar Crowson (piano) and Arthur Benjamin (composition). Later studies at the Royal College of Music (where he is now a professor) and Oxford were supplemented by private lessons with the great Hungarian pianist Louis Kentner and a period as the pianist in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He was Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and currently teaches at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire as well as Xiamen University China as Guest Professor. He is frequently invited to give masterclasses, most recently for the Ira Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at the San Jose State University, California. He has adjudicated on many occasions for the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival.