Competitions 2026 - Announcing the Adjudicators!
We’re thrilled to announce the eight fantastic Competitions 2026 adjudicators who will be judging our four performance categories at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire on Sunday February 22 2026!
School Performer Competition: Alison Hardy and James McDowall
Young Performer Competition: Helen Benson and Anna Wolstenholme
Young Artist Competition: Fergus Davidson and Amy Yule
Ensemble Competition: Carolyn Kelly and Mel Orriss
Between them they have a breathtaking range of experience: playing in top orchestras, performing in West End musicals, scoring film and TV, working with stars like Placido Domingo and Gloria Estefan, teaching and mentoring at schools, courses and conservatoires, publishing award-winning music, and even inventing new piccolos!
Everyone who performs at the Competitions event will receive individual feedback from them - it’s a wonderful opportunity to learn from leading lights of the flute world.
Competitions entry closes Sunday 30th at 11:59PM, and places are filling up! Our School performer class is already sold out, but our Young Performer, Young Artist and Flute Ensemble categories are open for entries - so don’t miss out on your chance to take part. Find out more and enter below:
School Performer category - Alison Hardy and James McDowall
Alison Hardy
Alison Hardy was born in Cumbria and studied the flute with Trevor Wye, Clare Southworth and then Margaret Campbell, finishing her studies in London. Her career has been very varied, combining freelance playing with teaching. As a performer she has worked under the Baton of Sir Simon Rattle & Boulez and has played with the CBSO, BBC NOW, Welsh National Opera and BBC Philharmonic. Alison has been lucky enough to tour extensively and has also played with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. She is a member of the Longborough Festival orchestra, playing both flute and piccolo.
Alison is a respected teacher in the UK and particularly the Midlands, having been responsible for students gaining places in the NYWO and at top music colleges. She has taught piccolo and flute for several years at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Junior Conservatoire and Birmingham University.
She has coached on the Sound Inventors and SPNM education courses and CBSO education workshops. Recently she has stepped down as Head of Woodwind and Brass at Repton School and works at Foremarke Hall Preparatory School. When not working she is happily married and enjoys time with her husband and dogs Daisy and Barney.
'I am really looking forward to being involved in the Competitions and hearing all these budding flautists. I enjoy working with young people and I think this will be a fabulous opportunity for them.’
James McDowall
James was born in London and began playing the flute at the age of eleven. At fourteen he joined the junior department of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he continued his studies with Judith Hall and Mary Ryan. In 1992, James went on to the Birmingham Conservatoire to study further with Chris Steward, Colin Lily, Alison Chadwick and Elena Duran before graduating in 1996.
James has since established an active musical career, enjoyed both as a teacher and performer. He has given numerous concerts as both a soloist and orchestral player in venues including Symphony Hall Birmingham, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and the Bridgewater Hall and toured extensively across the UK, Asia and the US, working with artists such as Alfie Boe, Longborough Festival Opera, Il Divo, and Gloria Estefan.
'I am delighted to have been asked to adjudicate as part of this year's British Flute Society Competitions and am very much looking forward to hearing the breadth of talent of our performers'.
Young Performer category - Helen Benson and Anna Wolstenholme
Helen Benson
Helen was appointed Principal Piccolo of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 2022 and enjoys a varied career performing and teaching both flute and piccolo. Before moving to Birmingham, Helen was based in Norway for eight years as a member of the Oslo Philharmonic, and was also a regular guest with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Norwegian Opera Orchestra, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Bergen Philharmonic, and a founding member of the Oslo-based contemporary music group Ensemble Temporum.
Helen studied flute at Chetham’s School of Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Shortly after graduation, she was appointed Principal Piccolo of the Monterrey Symphony Orchestra, Mexico. The following year she relocated to Mexico City where she worked for the next six years as a flautist and piccolo player with orchestras and ensembles such as Mexico City Philharmonic, Mexico State Symphony Orchestra and Minería Symphony Orchestra. In 2012, Helen began a masters degree at the Swedish National Orchestra Academy in Gothenburg, studying flute with Håvard Lysebo and piccolo with Andrew Cunningham. During her two years in Sweden, she was a regular guest with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Opera Orchestra and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.
Since moving back to the UK in 2022, she has appeared as guest Principal Piccolo with several of the UK’s leading orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hallé, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Royal Northern Sinfonia, and is a regular performer with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG). Helen is a piccolo tutor at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and has been a visiting teacher at both Trinity Laban Conservatoire and Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London.
Anna Wolstenholme
Anna Wolstenholme’s hybrid career as flautist and educator spans several countries and institutions. She has held positions in orchestras from Brazil (OSESP) to Norway, where she was Principal Flute of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for a decade. Recent performance highlights include chamber collaborations with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective and Hilary Hahn at her Dortmund Festival, pianist Tom Poster and the Heath Quartet, Manchester Collective and musicians of the Chamber Society of the Lincoln Center NYC.
She can often be heard on film and TV soundtracks and was prominently featured on the 2023 score of Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. Anna is now the first flute of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia and regularly works as a guest principal with the UK’s major symphony orchestras including the LSO, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Philharmonia, BBC, Royal Opera House, Halle, Opera North, RTE, CBSO, ENO, Sinfonietta and RSNO, with whom she has also toured and recorded for Chandos, BIS, NRK, Sony, Landor and the BBC for live and studio performances including the Proms.
Having been an Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, Anna is now a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music in Artist Development and Chamber Music where she works intensively as part of a team of experts at the forefront of innovative training for the next generation of musicians. Her immersion in talent development has also led to work with YCAT, ChamberStudio, and the Drake Calleja Trust where she is now a mentor, panellist and Creative Development consultant. Anna is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music and when not at work can be found absorbed in a DIY project or researching off-grid living.
‘I’m really looking forward to hearing the performances - it’s always exciting to hear new talent coming through! Thanks to the BFS for providing this super important platform and good luck to all the participants - remember we’ll be willing you to show your best and enjoy the music.’
Young Artist category - Fergus Davidson and Amy Yule
Fergus Davidson
Spanning a freelance career of 38 years, Fergus has trialled for practically every orchestra in the UK, gaining the nickname Super Dep from having built a reputation for sight-reading live performances of some of the most difficult repertoire - works such as Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq D’Or for Royal Opera, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 for BBC NOW, Walton’s Symphony No. 1 for the Hallé and Debussy’s Nocturnes for the BBC Philharmonic. (He says: ‘the list is long but important in that it forms the daily bread of a freelancer and is vital for longevity in this career’).
The music he has performed is also extremely varied, from learning a globe-spanning range of instruments such as the shakuhachi, bansuri, shinobue and dizi and performing for West End musicals like The Lion King and for Quincy Jones, to recording with Placido Domingo and for Queen Elizbeth and King Charles III. “The profession is as rewarding as it is tough”.
Aside from performing, Fergus is the owner and maker of FD piccolo headjoints and is in the final stages of designing and making a new piccolo which covers such things as the legendary silly top-G-to-A trill (which will now be simple with a single key playing a precise A while fingering G), and some other game-changing designs that will be revealed on release in late 2026. Fergus also repairs and restores everything in the flute family.
Amy Yule
Amy started her current role as the Hallé’s Principal Flute in 2019, having previously held the same position at the Royal Northern Sinfonia in Gateshead. She regularly appears as guest principal flute for many of the UK’s orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Sinfonia of London and the Philharmonia. Outside of the orchestra, Amy is a flute tutor for the Royal Northern College of Music and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, where she works with the young musicians of the orchestra as well as being involved in their Inspire Programme.
Amy was the winner of the BFS Young Artist competition in 2017 while studying for her Masters at the Royal Academy of Music. She graduated with distinction, a DipRAM award and several prizes including the Patron’s Award, Woodwind Finalists’ Prize and the HRH Duchess of Gloucester Prize. Prior to this Amy studied for her undergraduate degree at the Royal Northern College of Music with Laura Jellicoe, Jo Boddington and Richard Davis. She has been awarded associate membership of both institutions.
Flute Ensemble category - Carolyn Kelly and Mel Orriss
Carolyn Kelly
Carolyn studied Piano and Flute at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama before teaching for the Croydon Music Service in most schools in Croydon, playing in a wind quintet, demonstrating instruments and giving concerts.
She also directed the Croydon Schools Fluteharmonic with Simon Desorgher for 20 years, taking part in concerts at Fairfield Halls & other venues (she says: ‘One year, James Galway requested we play in the foyer when he was conducting and performing with the London Mozart Players, and to the delight of players and audience, he came and played with us!’)
She has tutored for Liz Goodwin on numerous courses for Flutewise, including playing at the Barbican with hundreds of other flautists, and spent a decade playing with the Flute Orchestra of London under Julie Wright and visiting Atarah Ben-Tovim in the Dordogne, where they played a series of concerts with visiting musicians. She currently directs the Just Flutes Orchestra in Croydon. Her other interests include travel, singing in two choirs, and wildlife photography.
Mel Orriss
Mel studied flute at Chetham’s School of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Peter Lloyd. She then undertook the Guildhall’s postgraduate Orchestral Training course, winning the Philip Jones Prize for orchestral playing. As a student, she was a semi-finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition and toured with the European Community Youth Orchestra.
Following an extensive and successful career as a flautist, Mel’s passion for arranging and composing led to the founding of Wonderful Winds in 2010, which quickly gained a global reputation for excellence, providing inspiring ensemble music for wind players of all levels. Its publications have won major prizes in the National Flute Association (USA) Newly Published Music competition.
Career highlights include working with the Flute Bands of Derry/Londonderry on Shaun Davey’s The Relief of Derry Symphony, which Mel arranged and conducted, and leading over 100 flautists in a massed performance of her award-winning arrangement of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin at the Just Flutes Festival 2025.
Mel continues to teach flautists of all ages and coaches flute ensembles and woodwind groups. She is the musical director of Flute Cocktail, Tavistock, and Assistant Conductor and Woodwind Coach of the Devon Youth Orchestras. She also enjoys travelling the country with the Wonderful Winds Flute Roadshow, and wearing her narrator’s hat in concerts with long-time collaborators, Festive Flutes.
"I'm delighted to be adjudicating the Flute Ensemble competition at this year’s BFS event. Flute groups are my passion, and it's always a treat to witness the musical camaraderie and creative energy that ensemble playing inspires. Music is nothing unless it's shared — and playing together is one of the most joyful and fun ways to do just that, both among performers and with the audience."
