Sir Nicholas Kenyon CBE, Chair
Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Managing Director of the Barbican Centre
Nick was a music critic for The New Yorker, The Times and Observer, and editor of Early Music between 1983 and 1992.
He was Controller of BBC Radio 3 from 1992-1998, and Director of the BBC Proms from 1996 to 2007. During his time at Radio 3, he was responsible for the award-winning seasons, Fairest Isle and Sounding the Century. He oversaw the BBC’s programming for the Millennium, and ran the BBC’s Live Events and TV Classical Music departments, including the Queen’s Jubilee Concerts in 2002.
Nick has lectured widely and published books on Bach, Mozart, Simon Rattle, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and early music. Most recently he has edited, The City of London: a Companion Guide. He has been a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and is an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a member of Arts Council England. He was knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours, and in 2011 received the British Academy President’s medal for outstanding service to the arts and humanities. He is married with four children and lives in London.
Dr Sam Aaron
Research Associate, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Live coder and Founder of Sonic Pi
Dr Sam Aaron is currently a Research Associate and member of the Digital Technology Group at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He is a live coder, who strongly believes in the importance of emphasising, exploring and celebrating creativity within all aspects of programming. He is the lead developer on a suite of open source tools: Overtone, a collaborative programmable music environment; Quil, an enhanced Clojure version of the visual language Processing; Emacs Live, a curated suite of Emacs tools, placing strong emphasis on live feedback and visual cues. Sam is the creator of Sonic Pi, a music live coding environment used to teach programming within schools. Sam has taken inspiration not only from his familiar territories of computer industry and academia but also from the arts, a combination he now believes to be essential for the development of well-researched, creative, innovative and practical ideas in this field.
Hasan Bakhshi
Director, Creative Economy in Policy & Research, NESTA
Hasan Bakhshi leads Nesta's creative and digital economy policy and research. His recent work includes co-authoring the Next Gen skills review of the video games and visual effects industries, which has led to wholesale reforms of the school ICT and computing curriculum in England, and the Manifesto for the Creative Economy, which sets out ten recommendations by which governments can help the creative economy grow.
Prior to Nesta, Hasan worked as Executive Director and Senior International Economist at Lehman Brothers, and as Deputy Chief Economist at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Hasan has eight years’ experience as an economist at the Bank of England. Hasan has published widely in academic journals and policy publications on topics ranging from technological progress and economic growth to the economics of the creative and cultural sector. He has also consulted for a number of organisations, including the European Commission, Film London and the British Film Institute. Hasan has a BA in Economics from Cambridge and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. He is also Adjunct Professor of Creative Industries at the Queensland University of Technology, and in 2013 was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Brighton for his work on economic policy for the creative industries. In the 2015 New Year’s Honours he was awarded an MBE for services to the creative industries.
Hasan is a founding member of the government’s Creative Industries Council
Carolyn Baxendale MBE
Head, Bolton Music Service
Carolyn graduated with a Master of Music from Manchester University in 1984 and has followed this with a career in music education. After teaching music in primary and secondary schools Carolyn joined Bolton Music Service in 1999, as an Advanced Skills teacher. Since taking up the post of Head of Bolton Music Service in 2007 she has focused on increasing the impact of the service with local schools and other stakeholders, working with a wider range of partners and creating a secure profile for music education, both locally and further afield. Bolton Music Service is now the lead partner in the Greater Manchester Music Hub.
Carolyn is Head of Bolton Music Service and leads the GM Music Hub. She is currently a board member at the RNCM, Chetham’s School of Music and the new charity Trust Music. She contributes to the national music education landscape through her work as a member of the ABRSM Music Education Advisory Board and other Arts Council advisory groups. Her musical expertise lies in choral training and direction and she currently directs a number of local youth and adult choirs. She was awarded an MBE in January 2016 for services to music and the community in Bolton.
Professor Pamela Burnard
Professor of Arts, Creativities and Education, University of Cambridge
Pamela is Professor of Arts, Creativities and Education at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education, where she is manager of the Professional Doctorate programme with a mandate to develop best practice for training and education in innovative contemporary and traditional approaches to practice-based, participatory, and arts-based research.
She is a conservatoire-trained musician, an academic, researcher, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Homerton College and The Arts in Society Research Network. She is founder-convenor of CIAN, an intercultural arts network and the biennial international BIBACC conference). She is a re-elected board member of the National Association of Music in Higher Education (NAMHE), sits on the Creative Industries Federation HE/FE working party and was twice elected to the Board of Directors for ISME (2002-2006).
Known internationally for her research on diverse creativities in music of all kinds, with 17 books authored/co-authored/edited and 100 published articles and book chapters, her work addresses crucial issues concerning music (and the arts) in contemporary society. Professor Burnard is dedicated to advancing instrumental and vocal music teaching and learning, teaching music creatively and teaching for diverse musical creativities and their assessment. She is an ardent advocate of practice-based research, arts-informed and a/r/t/ographic inquiry. In this field her ambition is to re-envisage how musical creativities can be developed through innovative practices and key evaluation criteria.
Sam Jackson
Managing Editor, Classic FM
Sam holds the position of Managing Editor, Classic FM and Smooth Radio at Global, the media and entertainment company. He is responsible for the stations’ on-air output, and has held this role for Classic FM since 2011.
Sam’s role includes oversight of music policy, programming of the Classic FM Live concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, and work across the two brands’ range of books, downloads and album releases. During his time as Managing Editor, Classic FM has been named both UK Radio Brand of the Year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards and Best Classical Format at the New York International Radio Festival.
Sam spent three years as Classic FM’s Executive Producer and Head of Music. He caught the radio bug whilst at university, where he undertook a placement at BBC Radio York. As a student, Sam was also a member of the inaugural Classic FM Consumer Panel, chaired by the former Culture Secretary, Chris Smith. Twice chosen for The Radio Academy’s 30 Under 30 and in 2012, he was the only person working in radio to be named in the Music Week 30 Under 30. For five years, Sam also presented on FUN Kids, where he got to talk to an audience of seven year olds about Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.
Sam sits on the boards of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, YCAT and The Grange Festival. The author of several books on classical music, he also writes about life as a father of four young children.
Mary King
Performer, writer, coach, broadcaster
Mary's career has encompassed a wide range of roles, including that of performer, teacher, coach and most recently broadcaster and writer. A popular and highly experienced mezzo soprano, Mary has worked with leading conductors and numerous orchestras across the world, and has made a particular feature of the contemporary classical repertoire.
She has had a long involvement with outreach and teaching, working with all the major companies in the UK as well as running training programmes both at home and abroad. During Mary's long association with English National Opera, she devised and ran a highly successful performance skills course, 'The Knack', for eleven years, and between 2004 and 2006 she was also an Artistic Associate for the company. From 2006 to 2013 Mary was Head of Singing at Millennium Performing Arts and between 2007 and 2013 she created and led Voicelab, an initiative at London's Southbank Centre which embraced everything from casting professional projects, to creating and training numerous choirs and small ensembles.
She is currently Talent Consultant at Glyndebourne and works as a vocal coach for a number of West End shows. She also offers 1-1 vocal teaching for professional singers. Mary is increasingly widely known through her work on television and radio. She was one of the driving forces behind Channel 4's award-winning Operatunity, and on Musicality, also on Channel 4. She has appeared on BBC TV as the expert analyst for the Cardiff Singer of the World competitions since 2003 and is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 3. Since 2006 she has been one of the judges on the National Choir of the Year competition.
Mary is also in demand as a writer. In 2007 The Singer's Handbook (Faber) was published, co-written with Anthony Legge. This has been followed by a series of selected vocal repertoire collections with coaching notes, The Boosey Voice Coach (Boosey & Hawkes). Mary is an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, an Honorary Fellow of Rose Bruford College and a Fellow of the Northern College of Music.
Suzy Klein
Writer and presenter, BBC Radio 3
Suzy is a writer and BBC radio and TV presenter, specialising in music and arts programmes. She graduated with first-class honours in Music from the University of Oxford. Whilst there, she directed and produced short films and presented a weekly live arts show on the student radio station Oxygen FM. She gained a postgraduate diploma in broadcast journalism from City University London.
After winning the William Hardcastle Award for Journalism, Suzy began her professional broadcasting career as a presenter on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio and TV services. She returned to the UK to work for the BBC as an assistant producer at Radio 4 on programmes including Start the Week and Loose Ends. She then moved to BBC Television, working as a director and producer on a range of arts and music films. Suzy became a presenter in 2005, when she was listed in The Guardian's "25 up-and-coming cultural figures". In 2008, she presented The Proms season on BBC Two. She has also presented the BBC Two programmes The Culture Show, BBC Young Musician of the Year and The Review Show. Suzy currently hosts Radio 3's drivetime show, In Tune, alongside concerts and events.
Nick Mulvey
Musician, singer and songwriter
Nick is an English musician, singer and songwriter. He studied music in Havana, Cuba and Ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, submerging himself in different styles of music, mainly specialising in West and Central African music.
Nick played the Hang as a founder member of 2008 Mercury Prize nominated band Portico Quartet. In 2011 he left to pursue his career as a solo singer-songwriter, releasing the EPs The Trellis and Fever to the Form and his studio album First Mind in 2014, which received a Mercury Music Prize nomination. His second album, Wake Up Now, was released in September 2017.
Paul Roberts OBE
Chair of the Board of directors for the Innovation Unit, vice-Chair at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and Nottingham Contemporary.
After a career involving Director of Education posts in Nottingham and London and the post of Managing Director of the Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government, Paul is now Chair of the Board of directors for the Innovation Unit, vice-Chair at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and at Nottingham Contemporary. He is a member of the ABRSM Music Commission and of the Durham Commission on Creativity and Education. Paul produced the government report “Nurturing Creativity in Young People” in 2008 and his recent writing includes joint authorship of “The Virtuous Circle – why creativity and cultural education count.”Other work has included being Chair of the Nottingham Music Education Hub, a range of committee work with NESTA, a member of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value and of the Ministerial Cultural Education Board. Paul is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to Education and the Creative Industries and appointed to the National Council of Arts Council England in December 2017.
Nitin Sawhney
Producer, songwriter, DJ, orchestral composer, multi-instrumentalist and cultural pioneer
As an artist, producer, songwriter, club DJ, broadcaster, multi-instrumentalist, orchestral composer and cultural tastemaker, Nitin is a talent for the British music industry to be truly proud of. Now, with a depth of experience admired by workmates from Brian Eno to Jeff Beck and from the London Symphony Orchestra to Paul McCartney, he has a host of challenging new ideas up his sleeve.
Raised in Rochester, he played classical and jazz piano, guitar, tabla and sitar and was friends from school years with a fellow enquiring mind, keyboard virtuoso James Taylor. Nitin became an early touring member of his celebrated James Taylor Quartet, but as a second-generation British Asian with so much to say, it was already obvious that his scope couldn't be limited to any one medium.
Not only does Nitin work in traditional mediums, he also helps develop the newest ones. Nitin has worked extensively with the UK games developers Ninja Theory, composing the music for their cutting edge, bestselling video games, Heavenly Sword, Pigsy and Enslaved. Recently, his orchestral score for Enslaved, with the Prague Philharmonic, won an Ivor Novello nomination.
Abel Selaocoe
Cellist
South African cellist Abel Selaocoe is a versatile musician who is interested in exploring the capacity of the cello across genres, from collaborating with beatboxers, folk and world musicians to giving concerto performances and solo classical recitals.
He has worked as a soloist with numerous orchestras throughout South Africa, having performed a wide range of concerto repertoire with Kwa-Zulu Natal Philharmonic, Johannesburg Philharmonic and Randburg Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 he made his Bridgewater Hall debut, one of the most prestigious concert halls in Europe, playing Tim Garland’s Cello and Saxophone Concerto. Abel performed the Schumann Cello Concerto with Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra and will premier Adam Gorb’s Cello concerto with the Great Britain National Youth Ensemble. He recently gave a solo performance of Britten’s Cello Suite at the Westminster Abbey Cathedral as part of their St Cecelia Festival.
As an orchestral musician Abel has worked with the Britten Pears Young Artist programme, recording numerous award winning CD’s of Britten’s works. He has also appeared with Multi-Story Orchestra, working closely with cellist Matthew Barley to make classical music accessible for a diverse audience and playing in the BBC Proms. Abel also plays with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as an extra. As a keen chamber musician, he made his Wigmore Hall debut working with composer Colin Matthews on his String Quartets. With Multi Story he has curated and performed a series of chamber music concerts from Maurice Ravel to George Crumb, in a multi-storey car park in Peckham, London. He is interested in collaborating with musicians from other genres such as Tim Garland, jazz saxophonist in Chick Corea’s band and the extraordinary jazz pianist Gwylim Simcock.
As an improviser, Abel is the co-founder of BBC Introducing artists’ world-folk-fusion quintet Kabantu. Kabantu plays across the UK in many festivals such as Fishguard, Ulverston International Music Festivals, Aldeburgh Festival and the BBC Proms Late Night Concert at the Albert Hall broadcast on BBC Radio 3. They have played in prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Sage Gateshead, Bridgewater Hall and Band on the Wall.
Abel has been a recipient of various awards: winner of the Standard Bank Young Artists Award 2016/2017, winner of RNCM Gold Medal, Worshipful Musicians Company Silver Medal award, winner of the Sir John Barbarolli prize (UK) and RNCM Concerto Prize. He has also been awarded the John Hosier and Biddy Baxter Music Trust Scholarship with Sir Simon Rattle as patron. He is grateful to Help Musicians UK for making him the recipient of the Suggia Gift, Karl Motesiczky Scholarship; and for generous support from the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust and the Thomas Jellis Bequest.
David Whelton OBE, Hon FRAM, Hon RCM
Former Managing Director, Philharmonia Orchestra
David Whelton was born in 1954 and trained as a pianist and organist. Following an early career in education, he joined the Yorkshire Arts Association and subsequently Leeds City Council prior to moving to the music department at the Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1988 he was appointed managing director of the Philharmonia Orchestra.
During Whelton’s tenure at the Philharmonia, the orchestra became an indispensable part of British and international musical life. It has established new relationships with many of the great conductors who shaped its musical history and has initiated and developed the concept of orchestral residencies. It is recognised today as a pioneer and leader in this work within the UK.
Whelton was a member of the jury of the 2001 Besançon conductors competition and is currently a director of IMS Prussia Cove and a member of the Philharmonia Trust.
Claire Whitaker OBE
Director, Serious
Claire is a Director of live music producers Serious and the EFG London Jazz Festival. Her track record as a cultural producer, having created work all over the UK, as well as Africa, the Caribbean and Europe, is matched by her skills in strategy, business planning, finance, governance, communications, entrepreneurship, diversity and partnership working.
Claire is committed to nurturing, supporting and developing talent and is passionate about enabling wide and diverse audiences to experience music, arts and culture. Claire is currently Chair of the Royal Commonwealth Society, a Trustee of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and a Fellow of the Marketing Society.
