Professor Ieuan Jones - Chairman

At the age of thirteen, Ieuan Jones was the youngest member of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales where he gained valuable early orchestral experience with Marie Goosens. At sixteen, he moved on to the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain where he came into contact with Marisa Robles who later became his tutor at the Royal College of Music 1981-1985.

Upon leaving the RCM in 1985, Ieuan was awarded the Queen Mother’s Rose Bowl for the most distinguished student of his year and the Tagore Gold Medal. In the same year, he won the Royal Overseas League International Commonwealth Competition and became runner up at the prestigious Israel International Harp Competition in Jerusalem…a feat not since repeated by any harpist.

Having toured as a solo harpist to great critical acclaim playing at many renowned Concert Halls and Festivals all over the world…including the Melbourne Festival, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Madrid, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Japan, Manila, Bangkok, Brunei, Singapore, Poland and many more, Ieuan’s work is now concentrated on teaching at the Royal College of Music in London where he has been a Professor since 1997.

Professor Ian Fountain

Prof. Ian Fountain, born 1970, was the winner of the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Masters Competition 1989 in Tel Aviv at the age of 19. Since then he has performed extensively throughout Europe, the USA, the UK and the Far East, with orchestras such as the London Symphony and Sir Colin Davis, the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, and the Czech Philharmonic and Jiri Belohlavek. In Moscow he was invited to open the 1992/3 season of the Moscow Conservatoire and in Poland he marked the 150th anniversary of Chopin’s death by playing both Chopin Concertos in Krakow. As recitalist, he has performed in major centres such as New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Jerusalem. He is a regular guest of international festivals such as Prague Spring, Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Enescu (Bucharest) and Kuhmo.

Ian Fountain has made several critically acclaimed recordings, including 20th Century Piano Sonatas for EMI, Beethoven Diabelli Variations (CRD), and complete works of Rachmaninov, Beethoven and Mendelssohn for Haenssler Classics with David Geringas. Since 2001, Ian Fountain has been a piano professor at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Dr Louise Lansdown

Louise Lansdown was appointed Head of Strings at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2012, after holding the position of Senior Lecturer in the School of Strings at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 2001-2012. Louise is the founder of the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition and Festival, launched at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in October 2014 as well as the founder and President of the British Viola Society.

She is on the council of the European String Teachers Association, Quartet of Peace Trust, Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the Albion Quartet and directs the Conservatoire based viola course at Pro Corda, Suffolk. 

Louise, along with her viola students is the founder of a major distance learning education project that the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire runs in collaboration with the Morris Isaacson Centre for Music in Soweto, South Africa called “ARCO”. The project was launched in July 2015 and was nominated for a guardian internationalization award in 2018. 

She plays on a French Viola c.1750 and 1890 Sartory bow, both previously belonging to the South African violist Cecil Aronowitz. She has also recently acquired a beautiful viola made by Antoine Gourdon. Louise plays mostly chamber music and solo concerts, collaborating with violists and other musicians across the world. She commissions new music for the viola and concocts hair brain schemes to perform music by Paul Hindemith and much unknown viola music, bringing the viola to many unsuspecting and innocent people. She is a member of the South African “Ubuntu Ensemble”. 

Louise hails from Cape Town where she studied with Prof Jack De Wet and Eric Rycroft at the University of Stellenbosch. She was awarded an ABRSM Overseas Scholarship for postgraduate study at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1998, where she then worked until 2012. Louise was awarded a PhD from the University of Manchester in 2008.

Kevin Gowland

Kevin Gowland was an Exhibition Scholar at the Royal College of Music where he studied flute with Susan Milan. 

During his time there, he won all the major prizes for his instrument and was also awarded the RCM's top prize, the prestigious President's Rosebowl for outstanding achievement. 

At the age of only 22, Kevin was appointed as Flute Section Leader with The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra by Sir Simon Rattle, a position he held for 17 years before moving to the Orchestra of Opera North as Principal Flute. 

He has appeared as Guest Principal Flute with the LSO, RPO, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Philharmonia, Halle, RLPO, RSNO, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and BBC NOW. 

Kevin has appeared as a concerto soloist on many occasions, collaborating with Valery Gergiev, Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, Paavo Jarvi, Sir Mark Elder, Christian Gansch, Nicholas McGegan, Nicholas Kraemer and Richard Farnes, covering a wide spectrum of the flute concerto repertoire. 

A busy recitalist, Kevin has appeared on BBC Radio 3; the Purcell Room; Symphony Hall, Birmingham; The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; The Cheltenham Festival; the NFA in Salt Lake City three times, with invitations to play at the Dallas and Washington Conventions and gave the first solo recital in the inaugural week of events at The Howard Assembly Room, Leeds. 

Kevin joined the RNCM as a Flute Tutor in 2017 and in 2018 was appointed to his current position as Deputy Head of School of Wind, Brass and Percussion/ Director of Woodwind.

John Moore

John Moore studied music at UEA with professors Peter Aston and Julian Webb, with whom he studied conducting. During this period and as a post graduate he also studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music with Sidney Harrison and Alexander Kelly. Whilst at the Royal Academy he also studied accompanying with John Streets, and as a repetiteur with Norman Feasey, 

Since 1979, he has pursued a career as a teacher, accompanist, conductor and composer. He began his teaching career at the Edinburgh Academy, and for 31 years he has been Director of Music at Shrewsbury School. The latter is now recognised nationally for the breadth and quality of its music making.  John has also written music for several Channel 4 and BBC programmes, together with nine Youth Musicals, the first of which, “Jekyll,” won a coveted Fringe First at Edinburgh in 1995. He is currently writing a new musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's “The Great Gatsby”, which will enjoy a run at the Edinburgh Fringe this August.

John has a Piano Duo partnership with the Anglo-Italian pianist Peter Bradley-Fulgoni, and plays as a duo partner with Francois Ragot, the distinguished French Catalan cellist. He has also given recitals with the tenor Adrian Thompson, and has been accompanist at the Gregynog Young Musician Competition for many years, as well as playing for many other competitions.

He is the Principal Conductor of the Shrewsbury Symphony Orchestra and Guest Conductor at the English Haydn Festival and of the Midland's Symphony Orchestra. 

International commitments include working with orchestras from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and at Shrewsbury School's International School in Bangkok. He also conducts an annual performance of the Messiah in Shrewsbury; an event which has been repeated for the last 31 years!

Conal Bembridge-Sayers

Welsh pianist and conductor Conal Bembridge-Sayers is currently a staff accompanist/coach at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and their Junior Conservatoire, as well as official accompanist for the Oxenfoord International Summer School, Gregynog Young Musician Competition, Urdd Eisteddfod, National Eisteddfodau, and the Bath Choral Society.

Conal's recital performances have taken him to the Leeds Lieder Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Ludlow English Song Festival, St. Martin's in the Field, Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival, Tenby Arts Festival, Oundle International Festival, the Dora Stoutzker Concert Hall, and St. David's Hall, as well as concerts for HRH Prince of Wales, Dame Shirley Bassey, and performances of The Bear at William Walton's estate, La Mortella on the island of Ischia. As a soloist, Conal has performed Shostakovich's 1st Piano Concerto, Richard Rodney Bennett's Party Piece, and numerous performances of Edward Gregson's Concertante for Piano and Brass Band, of which he gave the Welsh premiere.

Conal has been privileged to play for many outstanding musicians including Rebecca Evans, Adrian Thompson, Kathryn Harries, Gail Pearson, Eric Roberts, Rebecca Afonwy Jones, and Steffan Morris, in addition to accompanying masterclasses with Malcolm Martineau, Alish Tynan, Susan Bullock, John Mark Ainsley, Roderick Williams, Ann Murray, Anna Schwanewilms, Karen Cargill, Louise Alder, and Jamie Barton.