Joseph Tong

Joseph Tong enjoys a busy and varied career as soloist, duo pianist, chamber musician, writer, teacher and adjudicator. Joseph made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1997 as winner of the Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award and gives regular recitals throughout the UK and abroad. He has been a visiting teacher at Wells Cathedral School since 2008 and holds teaching posts at Hampton School and Trinity School, Croydon.

Joseph Tong studied at Wells Cathedral School and Christ’s College, Cambridge before completing postgraduate studies at the RAM with Christopher Elton.

He has given recitals in Japan, USA, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Spain both as a soloist and in a piano duo with Waka Hasegawa. Over recent years, concerts in Finland have included invitations to perform at Sibelius’s home Ainola, the Sibelius Museum in Turku and Helsinki Music Centre. Other solo recitals have included St John’s, Smith Square in London, St George’s Bristol, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and the Presteigne Festival.

In 2018, Joseph recorded a CD of Schumann at the Sendesaal in Bremen, for release this summer on the Quartz label.

His ongoing Sibelius recording project has received widespread critical acclaim and a further disc with violinist Fenella Humphreys is in preparation. A keen chamber musician, Joseph is a regular visitor to the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival, frequently performing with his brother Daniel and in various ensembles. He has also commissioned and premiered piano duets by composers including Dai Fujikura, Daniel Kidane, Nicola LeFanu, David Matthews and Edwin Roxburgh.

Joseph Tong was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2008. He is Co-ordinator of the Wells International Piano Summer School and will be joining the teaching faculty of the 2019 Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival for Pianists.

Joseph is also happy to adjudicate online/virtual sessions instead of a live festival.

Fiona McLean-Buechel

Fiona studied at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy of Music and has a passion for music in all forms. She combines a busy performing career with writing creative and collaborative national and international performance projects. She is Lead Tutor for Strings at Trinity Laban Junior Conservatoire and a specialist strings adjudicator and examiner, including syllabus development for the Guildhall Examinations Board. Teaching posts have included the Junior Guildhall School of Music, Goldsmith’s, and the National Children’s Orchestra. She has been visiting professor of violin at Dartington and Cardiff University. In 2005 Fiona co-founded and was course director of the Youth Strings Programme at the Dartington International Summer School. She subsequently founded and is Creative Director of South-West Camerata whose work was nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society for Education. Fiona has delivered sessions on 'Mindfulness for Musicians' at the 2016 Music Education Expo in Olympia, a Federation conference in Edinburgh, Musicians Union, and at Trinity Laban Conservatoire.

Angela Rowley

Angela is a graduate in German from University College, London and followed a career in teaching before embarking on voice training, working with many eminent teachers including the late Paul Hamburger. Her first experiences of public performance were at school, in choral societies and at Music Festivals. She encourages her pupils to enter festivals for the opportunity to perform, hear peers and receive professional critique. Her hopes are that the experience will be challenging, educational and fun! For several years Angela taught singing in a large comprehensive school and later in a Sixth Form College where she formed a choir, assisted in the production of musicals and initiated the development of music in the curriculum for students with both mild and severe learning difficulties. She is a firm believer that music is an essential life skill from which no one should be excluded on grounds of ability. She has performed widely in the UK and in Germany, France and Romania and performs regularly in recital, concert and oratorio. She especially loves to sing Lieder and 20th century English song and also directs Harmony '96, a large ad hoc choir which performs major oratorios twice a year. Angela teaches privately and regularly runs performance workshops and masterclasses.

Paul Harris

Paul has established an international reputation as one of Britain’s leading music educationalists. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where, as a pupil of John Davies, he won the August Manns Prize for outstanding performance in clarinet playing. He has taught in the UK, the USA, the Far East, New Zealand and Australia and has undertaken research into specialist music education for the highly talented. He has many publications to his name, mostly concerned with music education. His book, “The Music Teacher’s Companion”, won the UK’s Music Industry Association’s Best New Book award in 2001. He writes for many national and international journals and made an appearance in the final Inspector Morse novel!

Gary Ryan

Gary studied as a junior at the Guildhall School of Music, where he won the Director’s Prize, and later was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). In 1991 he graduated with first class honours and many awards including the Julian Bream Prize. Post-graduate studies followed at the RAM with an award from the Fleming Trust and was made an Associate of the RAM in 1997. Gary's London recital debut at the Purcell Room in 1994 was highly acclaimed by the critics. He subsequently performed a series of recitals for the Kirckman Concert Society at the South Bank Centre. In 1996, aged 27, he became Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music (RCM); he currently combines his role there as Assistant Head of Strings with a varied international career as a performer and composer. In 2013, he was awarded a Fellowship of the RCM becoming the first guitarist to be given this accolade since John Williams in 1983. Gary has also collaborated with John Williams and jazz guitarist John Etheridge to form 6 Hands. The guitar trio has since toured the UK extensively and has a new recording; further performances are scheduled for 2018. His celebrated compositions are often broadcast on Classic FM and have broadened the instrument’s appeal, combining traditional classical techniques and contemporary styles with a rich variety of musical influences from around the world.

Cally Foster

Since her first appearance in a festival at the age of five Cally has been committed to the festival movement and has pursued a career as a speech and drama specialist.

Cally was the principal of her Buckinghamshire-based drama studio for more than 20 years, combining that role with travelling extensively in the UK, Europe and internationally as an examiner for LAMDA and as an Adjudicator. Cally also delivers workshops on all aspects of communication and performance.

She is an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals, a Speech and Drama Representative on the Adjudicators Council, and is a former Chairman of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama.

Cally believes performing in festivals not only encourages an appreciation of the Arts but also develops the communication and presentations skills so important in today’s world. Everyone should have an enjoyable as well as a positive experience.
During these challenging times some Festivals will choose to take place online. This will give Performers the opportunity to perform and to continue developing their skills. As an increasingly experienced online Examiner, Cally Foster is able to work with Festivals and to adjudicate performers online.

Luise Horrocks

Luise has held teaching positions in both the Junior and Senior departments of Birmingham Conservatoire and as a visiting lecturer at Birmingham University. She runs an extensive private teaching practice and regularly gives masterclasses, choral workshops, presentations and teacher sessions both at home and abroad. She has worked as a mentor on the CT ABRSM panel and as a vocal coach on residential courses for singers. She has also trained and conducted the Wyre Forest Young Voices Choir.

For many years as Associate Chief Examiner in music for Trinity College London, Luise has worked on syllabus setting and leading projects for diplomas, examiner training and teacher support. Publications include a series of books on Musical Theatre repertoire and graded songbooks.

Luise is an experienced adjudicating member of the British and International Federation of Festivals.