Competitions 2024 - Meet the Adjudicators!
We’re thrilled to announce our Competitions 2024 adjudicators, who will be judging the performance categories and providing individual feedback - as well our Adult Amateur Flautists’ Workshop leader, Carla Rees, and our brilliant accompanists Richard Shaw and Joanne Sealey. For full Competition details and to enter, just click below:
School Performer category - Susan Torke and Jane Spiers-Keelan
Susan Torke
Susan Torke grew up in New York and studied with John Wion, then was awarded a Leverhulme scholarship to study with William Bennett at the Royal Academy of Music. She has worked with many London orchestras, performed in over 16 West End shows and National Theatre productions and has toured extensively with many chamber groups. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophone, BBC, radio and other session work. Susan teaches at the RoyalAcademy of Music Junior Department and received an ARAM from the Academy. Susan is a keen gardener and runner. She is training for her first half-marathon which she will run in the Spring.
Jane Spiers-Keelan
Jane Spiers-Keelan studied at the Guildhall School of Music and then at The Basel Musik Akademie, Switzerland. She has played with many of the leading UK orchestras and with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Jane now concentrates on chamber music and solo work, and is also pursuing a secondary career in art as a painter.
Young Performer category - Fraser Gordon and Vourneen Ryan
Fraser Gordon
Fraser Gordon initially trained as a violinist at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, eventually changing to bassoon as first study and graduating with First Class Honours. Whilst studying, he won all the performance prizes available to him, and was awarded the Peter Morison Prize for Overall Excellence upon leaving.
After several busy freelance years he joined the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as Principal Contrabassoon in 2012 and has since enjoyed touring both the UK and the globe. Off stage, touring highlights include hiring (preferably yellow) Mustangs in the USA, hitching a lift on a tractor up a mountain in Azerbaijan, climbing the Mexican Sun pyramids and tobogganing down the Great Wall of China. He is a regular guest player with orchestras around the UK as well as having played all recent projects with the World Orchestra for Peace.
Fraser has always had a keen interest in education and holds the post of Head of Woodwind at the Royal Academy of Music alongside being responsible for the lowest notes in the RPO. His involvement in the RPO's community & education programme RPO Resound is extensive and includes working in prisons as well as being an original musician in the orchestra's pioneering STROKEstra programme, helping stroke patients in their rehabilitation through music.
Fraser enjoys making reeds (yes) and spending his free time on remote Hebridean beaches.
Vourneen Ryan is a professional flautist, teacher and performance coach. Vourneen began her studies with Doris Keogh at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and continued her flute studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied under Edward Beckett, Philippa Davies, Sarah Newbold and Paul Edmund-Davies. Vourneen earned a Masters degree in Sports, Exercise and Performance Psychology in 2015. Since then, she has worked with musicians of all skill levels and ages as a Performance Coach.
Vourneen was invited to join the internationally acclaimed Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 2004 where she held the position of Sub-Principal Flute. Vourneen performs regularly with many of the major orchestras in Ireland and the UK, including the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Wexford Festival Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Vourneen is a keen chamber musician and is a member of Trio Táin (flute, viola and harp), Musici Ireland and Glas Quartet. Vourneen is currently a teacher of flute studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and utilises mental skills training techniques to motivate and inspire her students. Vourneen also delivers Career Development and Mindset Training lectures to students at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and has delivered Mental Skills Training for Performance workshops to students at the University of Limerick, DKIT, RIAM, INO and NYOI among other arts organisations and schools. You can find her @vourneen.ryan or www.vourneenryan.com.
Young Artist category - Gareth Davies and Eliza Marshall
Gareth Davies is one of the flautists of his generation. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and shortly after graduating joined the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra as Principal Flute. After 5 years he was invited to become Principal of the London Symphony Orchestra where he has remained for the last 24 years. He teaches postgraduate students at the GSMD and is involved in the LSO Discovery programme taking music to the East London Boroughs. In 2012, this led to him performing at the opening ceremony of the London Olympic games.
During his time in the LSO he has worked with most of the great conductors and soloists of the day. He also can be heard on many TV, movie and video game soundtracks including Star Wars, Harry Potter and many more. Most recently he can be seen and heard in the new movie, Maestro about Leonard Bernstein. Gareth has also written education projects for the LSO including the digital, Where's Simon which is available online and has just been placed into the BFI archive. His book, The Show Must Go On was a book of the year in the FT and Classical Music Magazine. In his spare time he enjoys running, cycling and riding motorcycles. Gareth is a Wm S Haynes artist.
Cross-genre music making has always been at the core of flautist Eliza Marshall’s creative world, with a particular love of the music of Scotland and Africa, Steve Reich and Paul Simon. Weaving layers of rhythms, percussion and electronics, spoken word and guitars – as well as her huge array of flutes, whistles and bansuris. Eliza springs forth solo, from two decades of numerous collaborations, with the support of PRS Women Make Music and Arts Council England.
A catalyst for positive change, Eliza’s music is inspired by nature and driven by a profound desire for human connection and compassion. Her compositions call for accumulative positive action and an understanding of our shared humanity.
Eliza has performed and collaborated with some of the world’s most renowned musicians, such as Peter Gabriel and The Who, gracing prestigious stages including Wembley Stadium and Red Rocks Amphitheater. She has recorded with artists from Stevie Wonder to Sam Smith; soloed with the BBC Concert Orchestra, at The Royal Opera Houses in London, Hamburg and Brisbane, on blockbuster Hollywood movie scores (The Great Gatsby, Robin Hood, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3) whilst also recording and touring with her own award-winning folk band Ranagri. She is artistic director and producer of the pioneering multi-media project Freedom To Roam – garnering 5* reviews from Morning Star, 4* from Songlines and standing ovations around the UK.
2024 will see the release of Eliza’s debut solo album and tour.
Adult Amateur Flautists’ Workshop leader - Carla Rees
Carla Rees (c) Nick Romero
Carla Rees is a flute player, composer and arranger, working to develop the repertoire for her instruments through research, performance and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her international career incorporates chamber music, solo work, improvisation and recording, including a discography of over 30 albums, and alongside her passion for low flutes, she is currently working to create contemporary repertoire for baroque flute.
She has premiered several hundred works, many of which are now published by her company Tetractys Publishing. She is Artistic Director of rarescale, with whom she has performed in the UK and internationally and appeared on BBC Radio 3, and also leads its associated ensembles, rarescale Flute Academy and rarescale Kingma Ensemble. She has a PhD from the Royal College of Music in London and was appointed as the first Professor of Low Flutes and Contemporary Flute at the Royal Academy of Music in London in September 2021. She also teaches the flute at Royal Holloway University of London and is Programme Leader for an innovative online music degree at the Open College of Arts.
She has taught masterclasses and workshops for flute players and composers at some of the world’s leading institutions, including the Juilliard School in New York and USC in Los Angeles. Performances in 2023 include in England, Northern Ireland, Italy, USA, Costa Rica and Japan. During the pandemic she worked on telematic improvisation systems and gave a number of transatlantic performances streamed on YouTube.
Accompanists - Richard Shaw and Joanne Sealey
Richard Shaw
Pianist Richard Shaw enjoys giving concerts and broadcasting with a wide range of instrumentalists and singers. His many broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 include duo performances with violinists such as James Ehnes, Viviane Hagner, Leonidas Kavakos and So-Ock Kim, cellists Matthew Barley, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Richard Harwood and Li Wei, Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Martin Fröst (clarinet) and singers Nicole Cabelle, Jennifer Smith, Ailish Tynan, Alice Coote and Ruby Philogene.
He is staff accompanist at the Royal Academy of Music. He is currently writing a biography of the distinguished Russian mezzo soprano, Maria Karinskaya (1882-1942), following his discovery of an unknown 400-page Russian manuscript based on Karinskaya’s lost memoirs. His music album, Malcolm Arnold: Songs and Arias, is published by Novello & Co/Music Sales shortly. Recent CDs for the Deux-Elles label include music by Phillipe Gaubert, with Kathryn Thomas (flute), the chamber works and piano solos of Sir Harrison Birtwistle, ‘Piper’s Dream’ (with Ensemble Lumière) featuring the piano solos and chamber works of Cecilia McDowall, and ‘Fauré and his circle’. Edward Composer is currently writing a cycle of 24 pieces (based on bird song) for him and saxophonist Gerard McChrystal to record for Metier later this year.
At the time he studied piano, his teacher, Ronald Smith, was immersed in pioneering recordings of Alkan’s works for the BBC, EMI and others. Moved and excited by this unknown music Richard began an extensive search for documentary materials relating to Alkan. He is currently writing a biography of Ronald Smith who would have been 100 in 2022.
Jo has become widely recognised in the UK as a specialist in woodwind and brass accompaniment and currently holds the position of Head of Accompaniment in Wind and Brass Studies at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, as well as being a Senior Tutor in Accompaniment and Coaching.
Jo accompanies regularly for the British Flute Society, Dublin Brass Week, National Youth Orchestra, and is the official pianist for Bromsgrove International Young Musicians Competition. Jo has had the pleasure of performing with many of the world’s leading players in their field including Phil Cobb, Rex Richardson, Peter Moore, Allen Vizzutti, Ian Bousfield, Zoltan Kiss, David Childs, Nicholas Daniel and Michael Collins.
