Advisors

John Gilhooly - Director, Wigmore Hall

John Gilhooly became Director of Wigmore Hall in 2005, aged 32, making him the youngest leader of any of the world’s greatest concert Halls. John is a native of Limerick city, which boasts a strong chamber music and opera tradition. He was educated at University College, Dublin, graduating in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science. In addition to his academic studies, tenor John pursued classical vocal studies at the Dublin City College of Music and the Leinster School of Music, under the tuition of Dr. Veronica Dunne, and continued his vocal studies with baritone Neil Howlett in Manchester.

John joined Wigmore Hall in October 2000 as Executive Director where he oversaw all financial, staffing, operational, administrative and strategic planning functions of the organisation, and led the Hall’s recent successful capital appeals, refurbishment, and other projects. He is a Director of the Association of British Concert Promoters (ABCP), Honorary Secretary of The Royal Philharmonic Society, and a Trustee of The Opera Group and The London String Quartet Foundation and was an occasional broadcaster on Irish radio (RTE), presenting classical and chamber music programmes. In 2005, John Gilhooly became overall Director of Wigmore Hall, adding artistic programming and administration to his executive role and overseeing the largest chamber music series in the world.

Martin Höhmann - Chairman, London Philharmonic Orchestra

Martin Höhmann was born in Germany and studied with Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the Musikhochschule Lübeck and with Thomas Brandis at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin. As a soloist he has appeared with orchestras such as the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, the Hamburger Camerata, the Philharmonica Hungarica and the Berliner Sinfoniker, and he has been invited to play at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and at the festivals of Salzburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Menorca. In 2000 he joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as a member of the first violin section and in 2003 joined the Orchestra’s Board of Directors. In 2005 he was elected Chairman of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Aaron Dworkin - Founder & President, Sphinx Organization

Aaron Dworkin is the Founder and President of The Sphinx Organization – the leading national arts organization that focuses on youth development and diversity in classical music. An accomplished electric and acoustic violinist, Aaron holds a Bachelors and Masters of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan’s School of Music. An author, social entrepreneur and artist-citizen, he is a passionate advocate for excellence in music education and diversity in the performing arts. Aaron has received an array of recognition nationwide including being named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow and he is a Member of the Obama National Arts Policy Committee and President Obama’s first nominee to the National Council on the Arts.

 

 

Wasfi Kani OBE - Founder & Chief Excecutive, Grange Park Opera

Wasfi was born in 1956 in Cable Street in London’s East End. A budding violinist, she played for the National Youth Orchestra and went on to read music at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. In 1989 she founded the small-scale touring company Pimlico Opera, staging productions in unusual places most notoriously, prisons.

 

Wasfi was made Chief Executive of Leonard Ingram’s country house opera festival Garsington Opera in 1992 and left in 1997 to create Grange Park Opera in Hampshire. In 2003 she set up another opera festival at Nevill Holt, the home of David Ross, co-founder of Carphone Warehouse.

 

Wasfi sits on the board of the Royal Court theatre, the Theatre Royal Stratford East and is regarded as one of the most successful fundraisers in her field. Wasfi received an OBE for services to music in the New Year’s Honour’s 2002, an Honorary Doctorate of Music in 2007 and various other awards including most recently Asian Woman of Achievement.

 

 

Mark Messenger - Head of Strings, Royal College of Music

Mark Messenger is recognised globally as a violinist, conductor, teacher, and educationalist.

 

As a soloist, conductor and chamber musician he has been a member of the Bochmann and Bingham Quartets, and has worked internationally with Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Bernard Greenhouse, Natalie Clein, Raphael Wallfisch, Thomas Carroll, Yonty Solomon, Howard Shelley, John Lill, Thea King, Michael Collins, David Campbell, Dame Thea King, Chris Garrick, Sir John Dankworth.

 

In 2004 he was appointed artistic director of the London String Quartet Week and was invited back for 2005, 2006 and 2009 and was on the board of the London String Quartet Foundation. Since 2002, he has been much in demand as an international judge, external examiner, to give masterclasses and as a lecturer, and as a consultant on curriculum development. He has also undertaken work for Oxford University Press, New Holland Publishing and the Associated Board, for whom he has just finished editing the complete works for violin and piano by Elgar.

 

As an educationalist, Mark has also been responsible for the initiation and delivery of outreach programmes for many orchestras and organisations including the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, English Symphony Orchestra and Colchester Borough Council. For four years, he was Director of Chamber Music at the Aberystwyth International Summer Music Festival, and now is regularly invited to deliver chamber music courses at the Britten-Pears school in Aldeburgh. In 1998, he set up the Essex School’s String Orchestras Project in order to stimulate string playing within the county and reverse a ten-year decline, and in 2000 he was invited to become Artistic Director and conductor of the Essex Young People’s Orchestra, a position he currently holds.

 

This year sees appearances in the Middle East, China, Russia and throughout Europe. He is currently Head of Strings at the Royal College of Music in London.

 

 

Richard Morris - former Chief Executive, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music

Richard Morris was educated at Eton, New College Oxford and the College of Law.  From 1993-2010 he was Chief Executive of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Richard was a member of the Council of Kent Opera (1985-1990) and is co-founder of Almaviva Opera, whose principal objective is to make opera more accessible to school children.  He became a member of the Executive Committee of the Music Education Council in 1996 and was appointed its Chairman for three years from 1998. He also served as a member of the National Music Education Forum and the Music Business Forum. Richard joined the Board of the Council for Dance Education and Training from 1999 to 2004 and became a Governor of Kent Music School in 2002. He has been a Governor of the Yehudi Menuhin School since 2004 and will become Chairman in June 2011.

Simon Morris - Director, Beare's

Simon Morris began his career as a cellist, becoming co-principal with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and spending almost ten years with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, for which he now serves as a trustee board member. He established his first violin business in 1987, and in 1994 he and his colleague Steven Smith founded Morris & Smith, which merged with J & A Beare in 1998. An adviser to many leading musicians, he has sold important instruments to, among others, Mstislav Rostropovich, Joshua Bell (the 'Gibson' Stradivari) and Julia Fischer.  In 2008 he was invited by Her Majesty the Queen to Buckingham Palace to celebrate J & A Beare's receipt of the Queen's Award for Enterprise. As a commentator on the violin market he has appeared on the BBC, CNBC and CLASSIC FM and contributed to the Financial Times, the Independent, the New York Times and other major publications.

 

 

Sir Roger Norrington CBE - Conductor

Sir Roger Norrington came from a musical family in Oxford, England and played the violin and sang from a young age. After reading English Literature at Cambridge University he went on to spend several years as an amateur violinist, tenor singer, and conductor, before attending the Royal College of Music as a postgraduate student of conducting, studying with Sir Adrian Boult.  In 1962 he founded the Schütz Choir, which achieved eminence in its field and made many records. In 1969 he was invited to become music director of Kent Opera and, for 15 years, conducted over 400 performances of 40 different operas. In 1978 he founded the London Classical Players, to research original instrument performance from 1750 to 1900. The London Classical Players leapt to worldwide fame with his dramatic performances and recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies on period instruments.

 

During the 1980s and 1990s Sir Roger was a guest conductor (as he still is today), working in Britain at Covent Garden and the English National Opera, with the BBC Symphony and the Philharmonia orchestras, and was Chief Conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. Abroad he appears with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, and in America, the New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles orchestras.

 

Since 1998 Sir Roger has been Chief Conductor of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, and of the Camerata Salzburg. In both places he has established a historically aware style of playing which is very dear to his heart.  Recordings have been made of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Mahler, all with the same pure tone, expressive phrasing and transparent orchestral textures.

 

 

Jenny Blaiklock

Jenny Blaiklock studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University and spent 15 years in the advertising industry working at McCann Erickson and Bartle, Bogle Hegarty for clients as diverse as Levi jeans, Smith and Nephew, Unilever, Liberty and Save the Children Fund.

She has since helped with fund-raising and event management for the NSPCC and Macmillan Cancer Support.

Jenny has four children, all of whom play stringed instruments, and so has had both personal and practical experience of seeing the benefits that music can bring to young people.

Richard Sharp

Richard Sharp has over thirty years of experience in finance, having spent over twenty years at Goldman Sachs. Richard was most recently Chairman of Goldman Sachs' Principal Investment Area in Europe.

Richard is Chairman of the Royal Academy Trust. He is non-executive Chairman of Huntsworth PLC, Deputy Chairman of the Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign, a Director of the Institute of Cancer Research, a Director of International Rescue Committee UK, and a Director of the Centre for Policy Studies.