ISSMUS 2012 Tutorial Team

Timothy Barratt studied on a Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, winning many major awards, and completed his studies with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris. He has toured extensively in the UK and abroad as soloist, accompanist and chamber music player. An invitation to accompany Masterclasses at Aldeburgh led to a special interest in song repertoire and in this capacity he has partnered such artists as Dame Felicity Lott, Ilse Wolf, Stephen Varcoe and Robert White.

Timothy is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, teaching piano, coaching singers and lecturing in Principles of Education, and head of Keyboard at Dulwich College. He has been an Associated Board Examiner and presenter since 1991 and also acts as a Moderator and Trainer of new examiners.

He has co-written the Board’s Teaching Notes on Piano Exam pieces and is a mentor on the CT ABRSM and MTPP (Reading University) Courses. He directs workshops for performers and teachers and is in demand as an adjudicator for competitions and festivals.

Tim Brown was an alto choral scholar in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, under the legendary Sir David Willcocks, a layclerk in New College Choir, Oxford and a founder-member of The Scholars vocal ensemble. From 1979 to 2010 he was Director of Music at Clare College, Cambridge University, where he was an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Music. With the choir of Clare College he made regular overseas concert tours and many acclaimed radio broadcasts and CDs.

During his tenure at Clare College, Tim Brown also re-founded the Cambridge University Chamber Choir, and in 1986 he founded English Voices, with the intention of creating a professional choir for young professional singers. Since then English Voices has performed with Tim Brown at major international festivals, and with a number of other conductors, including René Jacobs, Ivor Bolton and Louis Langrée.

His work with these choirs has brought Tim an international reputation as a choral trainer and conductor; he is much in demand as a guest conductor all over the world and as a choral clinician.

Tim remains involved in Cambridge University music-making as co-Director of the newly-formed Cambridge University Consort of Voices, and as visiting Director of chapel music at Robinson College. In 2011 he was appointed founding artistic director of the Zürcher Sing-Akademie.

Edward Caswell was a chorister at Exeter Cathedral and an academical clerk at Christ Church, Oxford before going to the Royal College of Music to study singing with Norman Bailey. Having worked extensively as a singer, Edward is now established as a widely respected choral director. He works with the Schleswig- Holstein Festival Chor, MDR Rundfunkchor (Leipzig), Netherlands Radio Choir and the BBC Singers, and has held posts with several choirs in the UK, notably the Philharmonia Chorus, St Andrews Chorus and the Wordsworth Singers.Last season he worked for the first time with Bamberg Symphony Choir, Choeur de l’Orchestre de Paris and WDR Rundfunkchor (Cologne), and this season he works for the first time with the Danish National Choir and the Norwegian Academy of Music Chamber Choir.

Edward is a lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and teaches singing at the University of Glasgow. As Outreach Director of Cappella Nova he leads workshops across Scotland and directs ‘Health and Wellbeing through Song’ at the University of Strathclyde. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Association of British Choral Directors and a regular presenter for them and for Making Music.

Robin Davis is currently pianist and conductor at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater in Germany, following on from a two year period at the Dortmund opera house as solo repetiteur. He studied piano accompaniment with Michael Dussek and Tessa Nicholson at the RAM in London, graduating with a DipRAM and staying a further year as Meaker Fellow. During his time there, he won the 2009 Kathleen Ferrier accompanists award and, together with soprano Angela Bic, first prize in the 2007 Euriade Song-Duo competition in Holland.

Along with concerts in the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, Fairfield Hall, Kings Place, St. John’s Smith Square and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, he has also given recitals in the Oxford Lieder, Windsor, Leeds, Two Moors and Bermuda Festivals. He has performed on a number of occasions as a soloist with the EMG and Dortmund orchestras, most recently playing Mozart’s K488 piano concerto with the Dortmund Philharmonic in their Konzerthaus. Recordings have included CDs for the RAM and with flautist Denis Bouriakov.

In 2012 Robin will take over as conductor of the Oldenburg Youth Orchestra. He has been the pianist for William Bennett’s flute course and for the 2009 Solti Te Kanawa opera course, as well as teaching briefly at the National Opera Studio before moving to Germany.

Malcolm Edmonstone is amongst the most versatile and in-demand jazz musicians in the country. He is a senior professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and co-artistic director of Jazz for the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

Early in his professional life Malcolm was called on by Laurie Holloway to cover the piano chair on an international tour with his wife, the late jazz legend Marion Montgomery. Since then Malcolm has continued to work with Laurie on various projects, including the first three series of the BBC1 show Strictly Come Dancing, where he played piano and arranged a significant portion of the music.

Malcolm has a long lasting association with the Dankworth family, having been appointed Jacqui’s musical director some ten years ago. He has worked with the family as arranger and pianist for numerous tours and recording projects, the most recent of which is the album It Happens Quietly, a collaboration between Jacqui and her late father, the great Sir John Dankworth.

He is a member of Mike Walker’s Madhouse band and has been invited to play with legendary jazz musicians Peter Erskine and Dave Liebman. Recent accomplishments include a complete transcription and performance of Donald Fagen’s album The Nightfly, an orchestral commission for the Southbank Sinfonia and an ongoing series of progressive and innovative improvisation-based repertoire for the jazz ensembles of NYOS.

Margaret Fingerhut is regarded as one of the most poetic pianists of her generation who has captivated audiences in many different countries with her imaginative recital programmes. As a concerto soloist she has appeared with many major UK orchestras, in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican. She is often heard on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM and many radio stations worldwide.

A Chandos artist, Margaret’s extensive and eclectic discography has received worldwide critical acclaim. Her numerous discs reflect her long-standing fascination with exploring lesser-known repertoire. Many have been selected as the Gramophone’s Critics’ Choice, and two of her Bax recordings were short-listed for Gramophone awards. Her recent disc of solo piano music by the Polish/French composer Alexandre Tansman received the accolade of “Diapason D’Or” in France.

Margaret taught piano at the Royal Northern College of Music for a number of years and she is currently a Visiting Tutor at the Birmingham Conservatoire. She has given masterclasses in the USA, Canada and China and has also been on the jury for many competitions, including the BBC Young Musician of the Year.

Philip Fowke, known for his many BBC Promenade Concert appearances, numerous recordings and broad range of repertoire, has appeared in many of the major concert halls worldwide with leading conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Simon Rattle and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. He is currently Senior Fellow of Keyboard at Trinity College of Music and is recognized for his teaching, coaching and tutoring in which he enjoys exploring students’ potential, encouraging them to develop their own individuality. Unconventional and alternative, he avoids methods and systems preferring a more holistic, imaginative approach.

Philip Fowke has made recordings for EMI, Lyrita, Unicorn, CRD, Chandos and Naxos. These include the concertos of Addinsell, Bliss, Delius, Hoddinnott, Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Tchaikowsky. He has also made solo records including the Complete Chopin Waltzes, the Chopin Sonatas, and an album of Piano Transcriptions.  He has recently made a CD with The Prince Concert for Linn Records in which he and Stephen Hough both partner Alisdair Hogarth at the piano.  This recording has received outstanding acclaim, and was nominated CD of the month by Gramophone Magazine.

He will shortly be recording piano works by Antony Hopkins CBE in celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday and has been invited to be on the jury of the 1st International Shura Cherkassky Piano Competition to be held in Milan in 2012.

Luise Horrocks studied singing on an Advanced Studies at the Royal College of Music, following her graduation from Oxford University. As a Soprano soloist her career took her across the UK and Europe and to America and South Africa. She specialised in Oratorio but also sang in Song Recitals and Opera and made broadcasts and recordings.

More recently she has developed her teaching career working at Birmingham Conservatoire and Birmingham University, in schools and in private practice.  She is a vocal coach on residential courses for singers, leads workshops for children and adults and also travels extensively as an adjudicator and mentor.

In 2010 she was appointed as an Associate Chief Examiner for Trinity College London where she has special responsibility for singing, which includes working on syllabus setting, training new examiners and leading Teacher Workshops.

Graeme Humphrey 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 to Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, France, Sabah, Sri Lanka, Japan, Thailand and Ghana.

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.  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.  He 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

Stephan Loges was the winner of the 1999 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition. He has given recitals throughout the world with pianists Roger Vignoles, Simon Lepper, Alexander Schmalcz and Eugene Asti.

His concert performances have included Britten War Requiem with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ with the BBC Concert and English Chamber Orchestras; Mendelssohn Walpurgisnacht with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale, Florence; Haydn Creation with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra; Haydn Die Jahreszeiten with the Semperoper Dresden; Elgar The Dream of Gerontius in Stuttgart and Darmstadt, and regular appearances with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Stephan has sung the Bach Cantatas with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Passions with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh (also recorded for DG). He made his Proms debut in 2002 in St Matthew Passion with Trevor Pinnock and has since sung it with many period and modern orchestras.

Opera appearances include Wolfram in Tannhäuser and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels; Maximillian in Bernstein’s Candide at the Berlin Staatsoper; James Macmillan Parthenogenesis for The Royal Opera, Covent Garden; Count in Le Nozze di Figaro, Schaunard in La Bohème, Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Demitrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Opera North.

Stephan was a member of the Dresden Kreuzchor before studying at the Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Felicity Lott DBE,CBE was born in Cheltenham. She was educated at Pate’s Grammar School for Girls, read French and Latin at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and then won a scholarship to study singing at the Royal Academy of Music. She made her début at English National Opera in 1975 and has sung the great Mozart and Strauss roles at the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Metropolitan Opera New York, Chicago Lyric Opera and in Paris at the Opéra Bastille, Opéra Comique, Palais Garnier and Châtelet, where she has also appeared in Lehár and Offenbach.

She sings with the world’s major orchestras and with the world’s greatest conductors. She has also toured the world giving song recitals and has made numerous recordings.

She holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Oxford, London, Sussex, Leicester, Loughborough and the RSAMD, she is a Fellow of Royal Holloway College, the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur and an Officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Philip Martin manages, unusually for today, to combine a busy solo career with that of a composer and teacher and these three elements of his musical personality are what make him such a force in musical life today.

His concert tours have taken him to countries as varied as Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Canada and he has toured extensively in the United States where besides holding a UK-US Bi-centennial Arts Fellowship, he has also held residencies in various Universities and has been a guest of Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals. His BBC and foreign broadcasts are many and he has also been a frequent visitor to the BBC Promenade concerts, the last of which was televised on “ Omnibus at the Proms”

Philip Martin has written numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental, and vocal works including 3 piano concertos, a harp concerto, 7 piano trios, and over 300 songs. He has also written music for theatre and film. Recent works include his first Symphony -Mystic Nativity, conducted by William Eddins with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, and in 2006 his third Piano Concerto-The Nine Orders of Angels, was conducted by David Brophy with the NSO in Dublin.

Philip teaches piano and composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire and is a member of Aosdana, Ireland’s exclusive academy of creative artists and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of London.

Robin Martin-Oliver has worked for most major opera companies including Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, Opera North, Welsh National Opera and Scottish Opera working with many well known directors such as Trevor Nunn and Phillip Prowse. As a Director his own productions range from The Marriage of Figaro and La Boheme to Godspell and Oliver! He has assisted Sir Peter Hall at Glyndebourne and revived productions for them at The Proms and for Channel Four Television.  

Robin was Artistic Director of Civit Hills Opera for two years and Stowe Opera for three years. He has directed several new works for the Edinburgh Festival and has written and directed many stage works including his own writing, most recently the musical ‘Jack’. He has been a tutor on several International Singing Courses for many years, has taught singing and musical theatre at St Clare’s International College in Oxford and still gives private singing lessons along with stagecraft workshops. Robin also runs his own small company  rmoproductions.co.uk  as well as several Theatre Arts Schools for children.  

Christopher Robinson‘s long and varied career in the musical profession has been centred around choral music. As Organist of Worcester Cathedral (1963-75), he took a leading role in the Three Choirs Festival. A move to St George’s Chapel, Windsor followed and, finally, he went to St John’s College, Cambridge (1991 -2003). Here he inherited a Choir which already had an international reputation. He has made many recordings which have won critical acclaim.

From 1976-97 he was Conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir and of the City of Birmingham Choir from 1964-2002. During his time at Birmingham the City Choir maintained a strongly adventurous and ambitious programme. Notable concerts included Messiaen’s La Transfiguration and Tippett’s Mask of Time (both broadcast on Radio 3). Other large scale works like The Mass of Life by Delius and Britten’s War Requiem received several performances as well as a number of novelties like The Jacobite Rising by Maxwell Davies and John Dankworth’s The Diamond and the Goose.

Christopher Robinson has received various honours from Birmingham University, the University of Central England and the Royal Academy of Music. The Archbishop of Canterbury made him a Doctor of Music in 2003 and he was awarded the CBE in 2004.  The Queen honoured him with a CVO in 1991 in recognition of his work at Windsor.

Stuart Smith spent his childhood in Montana, and subsequently studied at the University of Southern California under Gwendolyn Koldofsky, accompanist to Lotte Lehmann. There he gained a BMus (Hons) in piano and an MMus in accompanying. Following tours of the US and Canada with such groups as the Roger Wagner Chorale, he taught at Stephen College in Missouri.

After moving to England, he served as a vocal coach at the Birmingham Conservatoire for 23 years, as well as being a tutor on the Art of Song course, Irish Vocal Masterclasses and the Music at Rendcombe Opera course. He has adjudicated throughout the UK and Ireland for BIFF for over 20 years. He judged the Mary Brennan Bursary for aspiring professionals in 2009 and the John McCormack prize in 2011, both in Dublin. As a performer, he has toured throughout Europe, working with such artists as Emma Bell, Roger Coull and Gaynor Keeble.

Alison Mary Sutton trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She has pursued a wide-ranging career in opera, oratorio and recital, having appeared at most of the major London concert halls and with many opera companies, including Kent Opera, London Opera Factory and Opera de Lyon, touring widely in the UK, Europe and the USA.

Busy as a teacher, ABRSM mentor and diploma examiner, adjudicator and choral workshop tutor, she was for three years the external examiner on the final year recitals panel at Birmingham Conservatoire. She has a keen interest in vocal rehabilitation, and is on the Voice Clinic team at Cheltenham General Hospital.

Adam Swayne is just as at home giving a solo piano recital or conducting an orchestra as he is organising musical installations in art galleries or composing for amateur ensembles. He takes an inclusive, informative and innovative approach to his music making that is drawing an increasingly large audience.

Commissions include St Catharine’s College Cambridge (Many Dark Actor Playing Games), RNCM (Office Party), leading UK architect John Wheatley (Gridshell) and the Ebony Duo (Tarantella). His work for Manchester University Wind Orchestra (Go Down Hoe Down) was featured at the International Wind Festival in Glasgow in 2007. In 2011 Adam collaborated with Crawley-based beatboxer Krystal Gob to compose a Beatbox Concerto using a unique notational system, resulting in performances at Chichester University and in Lewes (featuring CoMA Sussex). Collaborations with other composers include Harrison Birtwistle, John Adams, Graham Fitkin, John Casken, John Corigliano, Geoffrey Poole and Gary Carpenter

Adam has performed at many major venues in London Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, at Festivals including Soundwaves Festival and live on BBC Radio 3 at the BBC Proms. He has performed concertos in Europe and America and has recorded for the UHR label. He has given duo and multi-piano performances with Jonathan Plowright, Terence Allbright, Susan Legg and gave the UK première of Steve Reich’s Harpsichord Phase with Jane Chapman.

Adam is Senior Lecturer in Music and Musical Theatre at the University of Chichester and Regional Coordinator for the University of Chichester Music Academy (UCMA). He was also a Park Lane Group Young Artist 2008 and teaches piano at the Royal Academy of Music.

Emma Taylor studied singing and trumpet at The Royal College of Music. She has run her own music and drama studio for fifteen years where she coaches professional singers and actors of all ages in singing, piano, trumpet, theory and general musicianship. She regularly holds her West End Singers Clinic where she coaches and prepares singers for auditions.

She has performed on stage in numerous musicals, appearing in West End shows such as Some like it Hot, Les Miserables, Candide and Chicago. She has toured extensively with the Young Ambassadors of Great Britain including a concert at the White House in Washington D.C. and has been a regular performer on the BBC Radio 2 programme Friday Night is Music Night.

Emma has been a backing singer and musician for many pop singers and has also performed with the famous Don Lusher Big Band and is a regular singer with The Art Deco Orchestra. She is in demand as a session singer and has lent her voice to numerous pop and musical theatre recordings, adverts and jingles over the years.

Emma has given masterclasses both here and abroad; every year students from the USA, primarily from Rhode Island University and Monmouth College in Illinois, travel to study singing with her. Emma also gives lectures regularly at local colleges and music centres.

Anna Tilbrook is one of Britain’s most exciting pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at Europe’s major concert halls and festivals, as well as coaching regularly for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. 

With the distinguished British tenor James Gilchrist she has made acclaimed recordings For Linn, Chandos and Orchid records. Their disc of Die Schone Mullerin was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, November 2009 and their recording of Winterreise was record of the week in The Independent and recording of the month in the 2011 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine. With the soprano Lucy Crowe she has performed at the Wigmore Hall, QEH, Lichfield Festival, Music at Oxford and the Gower Festival.

Anna is in demand as a repetiteur, continuo player and vocal coach, working for companies including the Royal Opera, Royal Ballet, Aldeburgh Festival and the LSO and conductors including Sir Charles Mackerras, Vasily Petrenko, Harry Christophers and Edward Gardner.

Born in Hertfordshire, Anna studied music at York University and at the Royal Academy of Music with Julius Drake, where she was awarded a Fellowship and in 2009 became an Associate. She also won many major international accompaniment prizes including the AESS Bluthner prize and the award for an outstanding woman musician from the ROSL.

Anthony Williams was born in Essex and studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Alexander Kelly. Following success in several international piano competitions he has gone on to give recitals, broadcasts and concerto appearances around the world. He is also an experienced accompanist, performing with soloists such as Peter Cropper and Ann Murray.

As a piano teacher Anthony has established an international reputation, his pupils achieving notable competition success and many going on to become professional musicians. Having taught at the Royal Academy of Music and Reading University Anthony is now based full-time at Radley College as Head of Keyboard and Instrumental Studies combining this with a busy freelance career. He has written numerous articles and books on piano teaching and regularly presents lecture-recitals and seminars on performance, repertoire and the art of teaching. Most recent publications include ‘The Best of Grade’ books for Faber.

Anthony is a Senior Moderator for the ABRSM (both jazz and classical), Trainer and Examiner, and a regular presenter for ABRSM Teacher Support conferences and seminars. He is an experienced and busy adjudicator, a member of the Federation of Festivals, and President of Chipping Norton Music Festival.