SINGING

Yvonne Patrick GRNCM, ALCM

Born in South Derbyshire, Yvonne began her professional career with D’Oyly Carte Opera Company before joining Glyndebourne Festival Opera. She made her debut with the Touring Company as Despina Cosi fan tutte. In The Bartered Bride she sang the role of Esmeralda which included training to be a trapeze artist! She sang Musetta La Boheme for Opera North & understudied Violetta La Traviata and Fiordiligi Cosi fan tutte.

Yvonne has also worked for WNO, Garsington Opera, Kentish Opera, Opera Brava, Garden Opera, Swansea City Opera & Carl Rosa Opera Company. Roles include Micaela Carmen, Pamina & First Lady The Magic Flute, title role of Madame Butterfly, Mimi La Boheme, Rosalinda & Adele Die Fledermaus, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Clorinda La Cenerentola, Adina L’Elisir d’Amore, Violetta La Traviata and Alice Ford The Merry Wives of Windsor. She was soprano soloist in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem in Nairobi Cathedral.

Yvonne appeared as soloist for the Philadelphia Savoy Company, the oldest G & S society in America. She is a regular guest performer on cruises, has appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night.

Yvonne moved to Devon in the summer of 2024 but still teaches at Chichester University and is an adjudicator with The British and International Federation of Festivals.

PIANOFORTE

Anthony Williams MMus, GRSM(Hons), DipRam, LRAM

Concert pianist, writer, lecturer, examiner and adjudicator, Anthony Williams studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London and then at Reading University.

Following international competition success, he embarked on a career as a concert pianist and alongside this quickly established an international reputation as a piano teacher and a passionate educator of pianistic musicianship at all ages and levels, giving piano masterclasses, public lecture-recitals and seminars on performance and the art of teaching both in the UK and abroad, including China and Hong Kong. He also coaches on International Summer Schools and Residential Courses.

Anthony has given talks on piano performance for Radio 3 and is author and editor of various publications including The Best of Grade and Fingerprints (Faber), Teaching Notes (ABRSM), EPTA Piano Journal, and the highly acclaimed Piano Teacher’s Survival Guide (Faber).

He is an ABRSM examiner (diploma, jazz and classical), educational consultant, and a member of the examiner training and review team. He is also a member of BIFF, Chair of EPTA Europe and President of Chipping Norton Music Festival. He was Head of Keyboard and Instrumental at Radley College, Oxfordshire for 34 years until retiring last summer to focus on his freelance and consultancy work.

WOODWIND AND BRASS & EDNA HEAD AWARD FINAL

Malcolm Green GRSM, LRAM, ARCM, Dip RAM, PGC(A)

Malcolm was educated at the Royal Academy of Music, where he obtained a First Class Degree and the prize for the best student on the course, together with the award of the Recital Diploma on clarinet, the Academy’s highest performance award, as well as several other prizes. He has played in the English National Opera and Ulster orchestras and given recitals in the Purcell Room and at the Harrogate International Festival, in addition to performing at many music clubs. Many of his former pupils play professionally, whilst former pupils who have gone into other fields include the former England cricket captain Alastair Cook and the “Pub Landlord” Al Murray!

Malcolm left his post as Head of Woodwind, Brass and Percussion at Bedford School in 2018 in order to devote more time to performing and adjudicating. He is a former Chairman of the Bedfordshire Orchestral Society and is currently Vice President of the Bedfordshire Music Festival. He has been the principal clarinet in the Bedford Sinfonia for over thirty years and has performed both the Finzi and Copland Concertos with the orchestra. His hobbies are walking, in which he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and been to Everest base camp, and cycling, in which he has won the Mersey Roads 24 hour event, covering 460 miles. He is an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals and adjudicates throughout the country. He is looking forward to his first visit to the Southend Festival and wishes all performers well.

STRINGS

Roy Robinson MA, Dip Perf RCM, ARCM(P), ARCM(T), LRAM(T), LTCL(P)

Roy trained as a performer at the Royal College of Music and was a major prize winner, winning the Leslie Alexander award, the highest accolade available on the viola. He was a dual first study viola pupil of Frederick Riddle and piano pupil of Angus Morrison. He holds a complete suite of performing and teaching diplomas on piano and viola, largely ARCM and LRAM, plus performing diploma on the violin and an MA in music. He also has a background as an organist and vast experience as a choir trainer and conductor.

Roy has spent most of his career combining teaching, performing, examining and adjudicating. He has taught academic music to A Level, the piano, violin and viola to diploma level, and the violin to RAM Exhibitioners; he currently delivers termly piano diploma masterclasses in Brighton. He has organised and delivered numerous orchestral and singing courses and festivals for children, some under the umbrella of SATIPS, and has coached and conducted many adult choral societies. He has arranged and composed countless pieces for choirs and instrumental combinations, and several of his works are published by Subject Publications. Following full-time appointments in various independent schools, mostly as Director of Music, he has now returned to freelance life.

He has extensive experience as a performer. He has performed on viola and piano in orchestras and ensembles, including work in London, Birmingham and Bournemouth, and as a solo recitalist, most recently playing 2 piano recitals in Hampshire. He has particularly enjoyed several long lasting piano duet partnerships, largely playing to music club audiences across the south. A previous official accompanist to Cheltenham Bach Choir under Brian Kay, he has performed on TV and broadcast on radio; he was also frequent concert accompanist (and occasional conductor) to Bournemouth Sinfonietta Choir, as well as other choirs across the south.

As a busy ABRSM grade, diploma and jazz examiner, he has worked all over the world (including examining in German). He has also engaged in other work for ABRSM, including viola consultant and selector of the previous viola syllabus and presenter of teacher meetings abroad.
As an longstanding adjudicator member of the British Federation of Music Festivals, Roy brings wide experience of performing and teaching to encourage, support and inspire progress. He not only enjoys adjudicating his main specialisms, strings and piano, but also the complete range of classes as a generalist: he is listed as GEN which means he is qualified to adjudicate all classes.
Away from music, he can often be found driving one of his classic cars.

SPEECH AND DRAMA

Rebecca Thompson BA (Hons), LLAM (Hons)

On graduating from Bristol University with a degree in Drama and English, Rebecca worked for BBC Radio 4’s Drama Department. After further journalism and corporate work, Rebecca studied for her Licentiate Teacher’s Diploma and has been teaching Speech and Drama privately and in schools for over twenty-five years. Additionally a voice and presentation skills coach in the region, she has taught in private and state schools, colleges and businesses; in addition, she facilitates communication training in schools across the country. Rebecca has been actively involved in theatre in the South West, both performing and directing, and has also been an adjudicator for the Rose Bowl Awards for Amateur Drama and Music. Rebecca has recently become an examiner for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Rebecca is passionate about helping young people to develop their communication and performance skills through festivals, and she is delighted to be adjudicating at The Southend Festival of Performing Arts for the first time.

EDNA HEAD AWARD - PRELIMINARY ROUND

Graeme Humphrey ARAM

Graeme has been a teacher of piano all his professional life, both at the Royal Academy of Music for thirty-six years from 1974 – 2010, and privately. He has also been very actively involved in festival adjudicating and examining – work which has taken him all over the world.

He was awarded an Associated Board Scholarship on the piano from New Zealand to study at the Royal Academy of Music. He regularly teaches in Hong Kong, and was external examiner at National Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore from 2009 – 2011.

In 1988 he founded the Blackheath Music Festival in London. From 1993 – 2010 he tutored at the Shrewsbury International Summer School and was Music Director of the Summer School from 2004 – 2010.

In 1997 he was elected Warden of the Private Teachers’ Section of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and in 2002 was elected President of the Royal Academy of Music Club.

Graeme has recently been involved in the selecting and editing of a major new piano duet project that is republishing long out-of-print beginner and intermediate level duet material, primarily for the pupil/teacher. This can be seen at www.fourhandsplus.com.

Graeme is both a Fellow and an adjudicator member of The British and International Federation of Festivals.