Mentors

Dean is a private composition and piano teacher and has worked as a band leader, composer, arranger, fixer, engineer and producer in the music industry since 1978. He writes music for all and any combinations of instruments and particularly enjoys collaborative song-writing.

Eddie has been central to some of the most important British jazz in recent years. He was a founder member of and an important composer for Loose Tubes, the legendary UK 1980s big band. He was a key member of the headlining Bheki Mseleku Band, featuring drummer Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith. He also featured as a soloist and composer in Django Bates’ Delightful Precipice.

Edward graduated from the Royal Academy of Music with a Masters Degree in Music Performance having studied with Richard Addison, Martin Speake and Duncan Lamont. Since then, Edward has built an enviable reputation as a freelance saxophonist and educator.

Elfyn was born and brought up in North Wales and trained at University of Wales College of Cardiff and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he was also on attachment to London Sinfonietta Education. Since then he has worked across the UK and beyond for Opera Circus, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, ENO Baylis, Welsh National Opera and Opera North.

Graham Lynch was born in London. He has a PhD in composition from King’s College London, and he also spent a year at the Royal College of Music, as well as studying privately with Oliver Knussen. Graham’s music has been commissioned and performed in over thirty countries, as well as being frequently recorded to CD and featured on radio and television.

Originally from Devon, Harriet studied Orchestral Percussion at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has experience in a range of genres from jazz-funk band Tezeta to orchestral playing with BBC NOW, studying gamelan in Bali to contemporary opera with Operasonic.

Over the last decade Jim Aitchison has been recognised for creating responses in music to visual art and for his visual score work. He has initiated encounters with many artists, including Gerhard Richter, Antony Gormley, Doris Salcedo, Peter Randall-Page, Anish Kapoor, Richard Deacon, John Hoyland, Terry Frost and Jeremy Annear.

Kate Graham was born in 1972 and grew up in South London. She sang and danced on stage from a young age and had a classical upbringing in piano, flute and singing. During her childhood she performed a wide range of repertoire… solo / ensembles / choirs / orchestras / productions and in competitions and on camera.

Lewis Riley has been a jazz musician and piano teacher based in Totnes for more than 35 years. He was born and grew up in Lancashire, coming to Devon in 1970 to study at Dartington College of Arts and Rolle College Exmouth where he qualified as a secondary teacher and, apart from a six -year period teaching music at Droitwich High School in Worcestershire, has remained in the area.

Liv-Marie is a highly acclaimed violinist who performs as a soloist and chamber musician at major international festivals and concert halls throughout the UK and Europe.

Luke’s music and theatre career began when he started performing with amateur dramatic societies and professional touring companies as a teenager. At the age of 20, Luke composed his own musical which he then produced and directed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2014.

Marc’s professional career started as a busker in Paris, in the summer of 1986. Tenor sax legend Dexter Gordon was around for the production of the film “Round Midnight”, and encounters with him profoundly influenced the direction that Marc’s playing subsequently took. In 1987 he returned to London to take a diploma in Jazz at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied under Don Rendell, Jean Toussaint and John Harle.

Matt was born in Cornwall, and after trying out a variety of musical instruments, he eventually settled on the trombone as he realised he had quite long arms! Matt was a member of the prestigious Bodmin College Jazz Orchestra (which won many national awards), Cornwall Youth Orchestra and Cornwall Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Matthew Ker aka MaJiKer is an award-winning, platinum-selling beatboxer, producer & songwriter based between London & Paris. He has produced two platinum selling albums and his work has earned three French Grammy’s, the BBC Radio 3 European Album of the Year, Critics’ & Press Prizes at the Sanremo Song Festival and the French Mercury Music Prize.

As a composer, workshop leader and presenter, Patrick has led projects and written and presented concerts for BBC orchestras, BBC Proms, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Royal Opera House, Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Music for Youth.  He held the roles of Learning Manager for the BBC Concert Orchestra and Education & Community Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He was appointed a Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Associate in 2015 leading their participation work in Cornwall where he now lives. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Kevos, a group of Cornwall-based musicians dedicated to performing contemporary music.

Paul is a singer, oboist, fiddler, member of Belshazzar’s Feast, Faustus (Preis der Deustchen Schallplattenkritik 2017) and the late BBC award-winning Bellowhead. He was a Choral Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, then subsequently a Lay Clerk at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and preferred Bass Deputy in Winchester Cathedral Choir.

Penelope Price Jones was a scholarship holder at the Royal Academy of Music in London, studying with Marjorie Thomas, following a degree in sociology at the L.S.E.. Her performing career was mainly on the concert platform in oratorio and recital work, including BBC broadcasts and an interest in new works for voice. In 1998 Penelope was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Richard was born in South Africa. At the age of 14 he went to live in Israel, graduating from the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1982 where he studied flute, conducting with Mendi Rodan and theory, harmony and counterpoint with Yitzhak Sadai.

Rob is a busy UK session/touring drummer who also performs drum clinics/masterclasses around the world for DW drums and Vulcan cymbals. He is currently touring the world with Canadian artist Loreena McKennitt on the ‘Lost Souls’ tour. In 2018 Italian singer Laura Pausini won a Grammy for her album ‘Hazte sentir‘ and Rob played on 3 tracks for that Grammy-winning record.

Sadie is a composer and performer based in Dorset. She is particularly well known for the socio-political aspects of her music-making with several works challenging stereotypes of marginalised peoples – refugees, Afghan women, the deaf, the homeless – celebrating their creativity and individuality with powerful expressions of musical solidarity.

Stuart Clayton studied Popular Music at Leeds College of Music and has since performed all over the world as a bass guitarist. He has been Head of Bass at BIMM Bristol for ten years. Stuart has worked on cruise ships, theatre shows, function groups and played on many sessions. He has also worked for Rockschool as their Bass Technical Specialist (2012-2018) and worked as a session musician on the current syllabus.

Thomas Brooman was born in Bristol in the west of England in 1954. After attending schools in Bristol and in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thomas went to Oxford University, reading English Language and Literature, graduating in 1976.

Tim Boulton learnt the most important lessons about musical language from Sandor Végh and other senior musicians at the International Musicians Seminars at Prussia Cove, Cornwall.  Drawn to the region by the beauty of the sea and granite cliffs, he and his family have been living in West Cornwall since 2003.

Dr. Trevor Wiggins studied piano and trumpet at University and continues to perform on piano, mostly as an accompanist. He taught in schools for 7 years, then moved in to Higher Education, training teachers and teaching music to undergraduate and postgraduate students.