Alison Balsom
Trumpeter Alison Balsom is the keynote speaker at Make Music Work.
2013 Gramophone Artist of the Year and winner of numerous Classic BRITs and Echo Klassik Awards, Alison Balsom has cemented an international reputation as one of classical music’s great ambassadors and is ranked amongst the most distinctive and ground-breaking musicians on the international circuit today.
In the 12 years Balsom has been exclusively signed to EMI, now Warner Classics, her albums have consistently topped the charts and received critical acclaim. In 2013 she conceived, produced and performed in a new 5-star reviewed production Gabriel at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. In 2009 she headlined the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms and in 2014 she returned to the Royal Albert Hall with her own solo show based on her No.1 album Paris, as part of a UK-wide tour.
She has performed with some of the greatest conductors and orchestras of our time and now also regularly presents for BBC television.
www.alisonbalsom.com
Sara Mohr-Pietsch
BBC Radio 3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch will speaking as part of the panel 'The idea's the thing' at Make Music Work
Mohr-Pietsch read music at Newnham College, Cambridge and, after gaining a first class degree, undertook an MA at Edinburgh University, subsequently becoming a tutor, a post she retained until 2006. While based in Edinburgh, Mohr-Pietsch embarked on a career in arts administration and began to broadcast on Radio 3, winning a BBC talent contest in 2004 .
After moving back to London her involvement with the network became more extensive. She became a regular presenter of the network’s Breakfast programme in 2007. In addition, she presents (with others) the contemporary music programme Hear and Now. Mohr-Pietsch began to present The Proms in 2008 on Radio 3, and on television for the BBC. At the beginning of December 2013, Clemency Burton-Hill replaced her on Breakfast.
She regularly presents Radio 3's Discovering Music series, particularly in programmes on Bach, whom she greatly admires and has studied extensively; early music is another interest. She is also a singer and pianist and plays the viola da gamba.
www.twitter.com/saramohrpietsch
Gabriella Swallow
Cellist Gabriella Swallow is speaking as part of panel discussion 'The idea's the thing' and performing with her Urban Family at Make Music Work.
Gabriella Swallow has emerged as one of the most versatile and exciting cellists of her generation.
She studied at The Royal College of Music with Jerome Pernoo. She was awarded the coveted Tagore Gold Medal and performed the Hugh Wood Cello Concerto in her final year. As a soloist Gabriella went on to make her South Bank debut with the London Sinfonietta in the world premiere of About Water by Mark-Anthony Turnage. In the same year she performed Paul Max Edlin's Cello Concerto with the South Bank Sinfonia, which firmly launched her place as a leading performer of contemporary music. This has led her to commission and work with many of the major living composers of today.
Full biography
www.gabriellaswallow.com
Ruby Hughes
Soprano Ruby Hughes will be speaking as part of panel discussion 'The jury's out' at Make Music Work.
Ruby Hughes began her musical studies as a cellist graduating from the Guildhall School of Music in London. She went on to study voice at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Munich and was awarded a Royal Philharmonic Society Susan Chilcott award to support her post graduate studies there. She gained a full scholarship to study with Lillian Watson at the Royal College of Music, London, graduating in July 2009.
Holder of a 2014 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, Shortlisted for a 2014 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, Winner of both First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2009 London Handel Singing Competition and a BBC New Generation Artist for 2011/2013, Ruby Hughes is the daughter of the celebrated Welsh ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch.
She made her debut at the Theater an der Wien 2009 as Roggiero Tancredi conducted by René Jacobs, returning as Fortuna L’Incoronazione di Poppea. She has sung at the London Handel Festival, Buxton Festival and Euridice L’Orfeo at the Aix-en-Provence Festival with René Jacobs.
In the UK she has appeared with English National Opera, Early Opera Company, Garsington Opera, The Opera Group, Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera. She also appeared in Sir Jonathan Miller’s production of the St Matthew Passion at the National Theatre.
Other engagements abroad have included Silvia L’isola disabitata (Bonno) with Pablo Heras-Casado at the Festival Internacional de Música Antigua, Madrid, Sandrina L’infedelta delusa for Potsdamer Winteroper, Narcissa Philemon und Baucis at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, The Indian Queen at the Schwetzinger Festival, and Rose Maurrant Street Scene at the Opéra de Toulon.
Full biography
www.rubyhughes.com
Juice Vocal Ensemble
Juice Vocal Ensemble will be performing at Make Music Work.
Juice are at the forefront of the UK’s classical/experimental scene, performing new vocal music which draws on classical, world music, jazz, folk and pop. They have featured on WNYC Radio, RadiOM San Francisco, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 3, BBC 6Music and Classic FM and performed at both the Wigmore Hall and the Southbank to excellent reviews. In 2007, they were the first UK prize winners in the history of the internationally-renowned Tampere Vocal Festival.
Their debut album Songspin (nonclassical), reviewed by The Observer as displaying ‘astonishing variety, spark and brilliance’, won the award for Best Contemporary Classical Album in the American Independent Music Awards 2012 and was nominated for a CARA.
Juice are well-known commissioners of new works and have premiered pieces by some of the UK’s finest composers including Glyndebourne Young-Composer-in-Residence Luke Styles, Roxanna Panufnik, film composer Mica Levi, Dai Fujikura, multi-media composer Mira Calix, recent BBC Singers Composer in Residence Gabriel Jackson, Kerry Andrew, Paul Mealor, Anna Meredith, Gabriel Prokofiev and Grammy-nominated Tarik O’Regan. They also compose for themselves and write their own arrangements.
www.juicevocalensemble.ne
Samantha Ward
Samantha Ward will be speaking as part of panel discussion 'The idea's the thing' at Make Music Work.
British pianist Samantha Ward has performed extensively around the UK and in Europe and has appeared on British television and radio several times. In October 2007, she gave her solo debut recital at London's Wigmore Hall and has given solo recitals in such venues as St Martin in the Fields, St John's Smith Square, St David's Hall Cardiff and Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, as well as in concert halls around Europe. Most recently, in February 2013, Samantha was invited to become a Bluthner Artist and is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
She has won first prize in a number of competitions, starting in 2004 when she won the Making Music Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists. She also won the Beethoven Society of Europe's Intercollegiate Piano Competition (2006), The Hastings International Concerto Competition as well as the Sir Philip Ledger Prize for the best Mozart or Beethoven Concerto (2006) and the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Maisie Lewis Young Concert Artists Fund Award (2007).
Full biography
www.samanthaward.org
Rebecca Driver - Rebecca Driver Media Relations
Rebecca Driver will be speaking as part of the panel discussion 'Making something from nothing' at Make Music Work.
Rebecca studied music at Royal Holloway, University of London and immediately went on to work in music publishing at BBC Music Magazine, before moving in to media relations. In 2010 Rebecca set up RDMR and currently has a roster of clients including Academy of Ancient Music, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of London Sinfonia, Cadogan Hall, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Mahogany Opera Group, National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Spitalfields Music as well as some individuals such as Nicola Benedetti, Iestyn Davies, Elizabeth Llewellyn, Leigh Melrose, Sarah Tynan and Stuart Skelton. Previous clients have included the BBC Proms, Beethovenfest Bonn, Cambridge Music Festival, Delphian Records, London Contemporary Orchestra, Mahan Esfahani, Musicians Benevolent Fund, Nicky Spence, PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Biennial, the Roundhouse, Sound and Music, Thomas Gould and Universal.
www.rdmr.co.uk
Ksenija Sidorova
Accordionist Ksenija Sidorova will be performing at Make Music Work.
Born in Latvia in 1988, Ksenija was encouraged by her grandmother to take up the accordion at 8 years old. At 16 she came to London to study with Owen Murray at the Royal Academy of Music where she was a prize winning undergraduate and went on to receive a Masters with Distinction. She was also awarded the Philharmonia Orchestra Martin Musical Scholarship and the Philharmonia Orchestra Friends Award.
Her other awards include the Friends of the Royal Academy of Music Wigmore Award, Recommended Artist under Making Music’s Philip and Dorothy Green Award Scheme, The Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal Maisie Lewis Award and she was the first Accordion Player to win the prestigious WCoM Prince’s Prize. She was also the first International Artist to win an award from the Bryn Terfel Foundation in 2012.
Past engagements include performances with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta Riga, Prokofiev`s Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution op74 with the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre and CBSO under Valery Gergiev, recitals at the Royal Festival Hall and Purcell Room, Colston Hall, the Lucerne Festival and other festivals in UK, France, Switzerland, Italy and Latvia. She has also appeared on the radio and television in the UK and her native Latvia.
www.ksenijasidorova.com
Professor Helena Gaunt - Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Professor Helena Gaunt will be speaking as part of panel discussion 'The idea's the thing' at Make Music Work.
Professor Helena Gaunt is Vice Principal and Director of Academic Affairs at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where she provides strategic leadership in research, innovation and enterprise. She is also a National Teaching Fellow (2009).
Her current research focuses on one-to-one and small group tuition in conservatoires, orchestral musicians in the 21st century, and the role of improvisation (verbal and musical) in developing professional expertise. She is an Associate of the Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Alongside research, she is a professional oboist and has been a member of the Britten Sinfonia. She is a co-editor of Music Performance Research and a member of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Music Education. Helena co-directs the Innovative Conservatoire seminars, a programme of international professional development for conservatoire teachers, and is also the Chair of the Forum for Instrumental and Vocal Teaching for the International Society of Music Education (ISME). From 2007-2010 she chaired the Research group of the Polifonia project for the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC), resulting in a Polifonia handbook Researching Conservatoires.
www.gsmd.ac.uk
Emma Bassett - Westcombe Brass
Trombonist Emma Bassett will be speaking as part of the panel discussion 'The jury's out' at Make Music Work.
Emma Bassett grew up in Cornwall where she started playing the trombone in local brass bands. When she was 16, Emma gained a scholarship to Wells Cathedral School where she studied under Alan Hutt, until beginning studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2009. From here, she gained First Class Honours in her undergraduate degree, claiming the year’s highest final recital mark in the Wind, Brass and Percussion faculty and representing the faculty as a finalist in Trinity Laban’s prestigious Gold Medal competition. She is privileged to be the Principal Trombone for the Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra and gained a place in the World Youth Orchestra (WYO) in 2012. Having won the Phillip Jones Brass Prize in 2011, her Quintet, Westcombe Brass, now regularly perform in and around London as well as working for Live Music Now. Emma has been fortunate enough to travel extensively with her music. In addition to performing in Italy with the WYO, she has toured the Balkans with the Hackney Colliery Band and represented Trinity Laban, performing Poulenc’s Sonata for Trumpet Horn and Trombone at the Tokyo Opera House. She also toured Southern India playing the music for the film Neethaane En Ponvasantham, as well as visiting Hong Kong and China with the Wells Cathedral School Symphony Orchestra. She also appears regularly with the Chaos Orchestra and the Matt Roberts Big Band
Emma was awarded scholarships from the Royal Academy of Music, Countess of Munster and The Musician Benevolent Fund (now Help Musicians UK) for her current postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Emma has recently come back from playing Swan Lake with the English National Ballet where she is on trial for 2nd trombone. She will be playing again with them at the coliseum this Christmas performing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
www.westcombebrass.com
Michelle Wright - Cause4
Michelle Wright will be speaking as part of the panel discussion 'Making something from nothing' at Make Music Work.
Michelle Wright trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and played the violin professionally. A chartered marketer, manager and fundraiser, Michelle founded Cause4 after leaving the London Symphony Orchestra, where her achievements in private sector fundraising led to her being judged the Best Upcoming Fundraiser at the National Fundraising Awards in 2008.
Since setting up Cause4 Michelle has undertaken major strategic and business development projects, including campaign developments with a number of national charities and consultancy work for FTSE 100 brands developing their cultural sponsorship programmes. Michelle also specialises in philanthropy, having recently developed a number of major philanthropy projects for charities and corporates, and having set up new philanthropic foundations for sports stars, artists and entrepreneurs.
Full biography
Vanessa Reed - PRS for Music Foundation
Vanessa leads the overall strategic direction of the PRS for Music Foundation and is responsible for their funding policy, partnership initiatives and resource development. Vanessa joined the Foundation in 2008 having worked previously as an independent arts consultant, on Grants strategy at European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam) and at British Music Information Centre. In 2010, Vanessa was selected by the Cultural Leadership Programme as one of fifty Women to Watch.
Vanessa specialises in contemporary classical and jazz but enjoys attending a wide range of live gigs, site specific performances and cross art form productions including dance, film and music theatre.
www.prsformusicfoundation.com
Clare Wilkinson
Clare Wilkinson is Senior Grants Manager at the Garfield Weston Foundation and former fundraising consultant.