Keith Allen

Keith Allenstudied at: Royal College of Music, London; Birmingham University, Kingston University, with a Master's Degree from the University of West London.

He worked professionally with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Previous positions include: Clarinet/Saxophone Tutor: Birmingham Conservatoire; Head of Birmingham Music Service.

Current positions include: Music Director: Birmingham Symphonic Winds; Festival Director: National Concert Band Festival (UK); Conductor in Residence: Birmingham University Wind Band; Conductor: Solihull Youth Wind Orchestra; Consultant Editor: Faber Music Ltd, Director: Best-of-British-Music.com – international trade advisory service; Adviser: London International Music Festival. Adjudicating/guest conducting in America, Spain, Latvia, Ireland, Hong Kong, Australia, China and the UK.

Melanie Armitstead

Melanie studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio after taking a degree in Russian and French at Durham University. She began her career with Scottish Opera, then worked with Kent Opera, Opera North, Opera Northern Ireland and the Châtelet in Paris singing roles by Mozart, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Bizet and Britten. Concerts and Recitals took Melanie to Japan, Spain, France, Holland and many Festivals and Music Societies within the UK.

Recently, Melanie sang Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and took part in a “Music Festival at Sea” with Richard Baker. She was also been soprano soloist in Elgar’s Spirit of England, Mozart’s C Minor Mass, Bach’s Magnificat, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music. Melanie enjoys teaching singing at Sherborne Girls School in Dorset and travels around the country adjudicating at Festivals and Competitions. In February 2009, she spent a month in Hong Kong adjudicating for the Hong Kong Schools’ Music Festival.

Elizabeth Childs

Elizabeth is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied flute with Gareth Morris and piano with Graeme Humphrey. International engagements have taken her to the USA, Australia and many parts of Europe. She has performed extensively throughout the UK as soloist, recitalist and orchestral player. Elizabeth has a broad and extensive teaching and performing career. She has successfully prepared pupils for scholarships to leading public schools, Junior Conservatoires and Specialist Music Schools, and now has many ex-students working in the profession. She regularly directs summer schools and other courses for young wind players.

Currently, teaching at UEA in Norwich, Elizabeth is also flautist in Quintessimo, plays with the Aurelian Ensemble, on the management team for Harpenden Musicale, flute tutor for The National Children’s Wind Orchestra of Great Britain, and directs several successful flute choirs. One of her main aims is to provide as many performing opportunities as possible for her pupils and firmly believes that encouraging children to perform enhances and benefits all areas of their education.

Stephen Clarke

Stephen is a choral and operatic conductor. He has been Precentor at Radley College since 2002.
He has conducted Schola Cantorum of Oxford, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He was assistant conductor for a season at Geneva Grand Theatre, and has worked on several operatic productions for BBC TV. He has worked with the London Symphony Chorus, preparing them for concerts conducted by Bernstein, Sir Colin Davis, Rostropovich and Ozawa.

He has conducted for English National Opera and Welsh National Opera. As Head of Music at Scottish Opera, he conducted a wide repertory of opera including much Puccini and Verdi. He spent a year as Assistant Music Director of the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, returning to the UK in 1999 to conduct operas for Scottish Opera and Opera North. He also occasionally works as stage conductor at Covent Garden and conducts choirs in Oxford.

Kathryn Hardman

Kathryn trained as a violinist at the Royal Manchester (now Royal Northern) College of Music, graduating with Distinction both in teaching and performance. She subsequently worked as a freelance musician in the North West, performing in chamber and orchestral ensembles, and also teaching at the RNCM. She held the post of Head of Strings for the former County of Avon from 1985 to 1991, and has since established an extensive and highly successful private teaching practice in Bristol. Many of her students have gained places in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and won scholarships at major music colleges.
Kathryn also teaches for the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Bristol University Music Department, and is in demand as a festival adjudicator and as a tutor on many courses in the UK, including the National Youth Chamber Orchestra, National Children’s Orchestra and others. She has for many years run a chamber music course for advanced string players and pianists “Novacorda,” in Bristol.

James Kirby

James gives recitals throughout the UK including Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh festival and extensively in Europe. He studied at the Moscow Conservatoire and returns to perform concertos and recitals and lead chamber music courses in the former Soviet Union every year. He has given concerto performances with the English and Scottish Chamber Orchestras and Moscow Symphony Orchestra. He is also a member of the Barbican Piano Trio, which recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and performs regularly throughout Europe and the USA.
James teaches at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Hull. He is an Honorary Professor of the Rachmaninov Institute in Tambov, Russia, and serves on the juries of many International competitions, most recently in Russia, Latvia, Romania and Slovenia.

In addition to performing, David has been an ABRSM examiner since 1998.

Sarah Morgan

Sarah has been involved in traditional folk music as a performer and teacher for many years. She currently sings professionally with a capella trio Craig Morgan Robson, with whom she has appeared at numerous UK folk festivals as well as touring in the UK, America and Canada. She runs three community choirs, in Andover, Winchester and Petersfield, and leads singing workshops for folk festivals, organisations in the arts and business worlds and folk development agencies such as TAPS and Folk South West. She is a talented arranger, and has published two books of songs for groups and community choirs, as well as one of her own material.

Sarah's recent projects include devising and co-ordinating the Gardiner Project, which brought together over 100 singers and musicians to perform Hampshire Folk Songs collected by George Gardiner; developing “The Way Through the Woods” (with Carolyn Robson, a musical workshop for children on a woodland theme using folk songs); and working on “The Axford Five” (a project to record and perform songs collected from women singers in Hampshire). Sarah is currently researching the use of folk song in the community choir repertoire at the University of Winchester.

Norma Redfearn

Norma trained at the Northern College of Speech and Drama and researched at Leicester University. She has taught and lectured at a variety of schools and colleges and was Head of Drama at Yorkshire College of Music and Drama. She began her acting career in Rep, before going on to perform in professional theatre in many parts of the country. As an examiner for Trinity College London, she has examined students, lectured and performed throughout the UK, Europe and in many countries around the world.

Norma now examines extensively for LAMDA and continues to teach students from six years old to 60. She gives concerts and recitals as well as ‘voice-over’ recordings for radio and a variety of companies. Her greatest joy, however, is equipping students with “life skills” and the ability to take their place in society confidently. She believes that festivals are an opportunity to develop confidence. This is her second visit to the Festival.