The Festival Committee would like to extend a warm welcome to our 2010 Adjudicators

Dance:

Jacqui Ison BA Hons., FISTD, FIDTA, RAD (RTS) & Diploma

Jacqui received her vocational training at the Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts before pursuing a professional career as a dancer and performer across the world, appearing on stage and television with international stars and celebrities.

After travelling extensively for many years, Jacqui returned to England and qualified as a dance teacher, going on to teach at several leading vocational colleges before opening her own theatre arts school.

Over the years, Jacqui has seen a number of her pupils’ progress into full time vocational training at leading colleges some of whom are now teaching or performing professionally. She has also produced many winners for a number of prestigious national level competitions.

Within the ever changing world of the arts, Jacqui returned to academic study and graduated with a first class BA Honours Degree in Performing Arts from Middlesex University where she also won the university prize for Performing Arts. Upon graduation, she went on to choreograph for a number of professional contemporary and commercial companies and productions.

Jacqui was formerly Head of Dance, responsible for devising the syllabus and teaching and moderating GCSE and A’ level dance at a newly appointed specialist status school for the performing arts. Today she is working on a project to give young talented dance students the chance to dance with leading dance companies in New York in Contemporary, Ballet, Jazz and Tap dance.

Jacqui is now a Fellow of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing and the International Dance Teachers Association, and she is honoured to be a dance adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals.

 Speech and Drama:

Janet Tuckett LLAM, GODA, PGCA.

Janet trained at the Barbara Macrae Studio, Bristol and has taught Speech and Drama for over 40 years. She has been an adjudicating member of the British Federation of Festivals since 1976 working at Festivals all over the UK. In 2000 she had her first experience of international adjudicating at the Hong Kong Schools’ Festival. In 2004 she became an Associate of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators, so is now often involved in adjudicating One-Act and Full-Length Play Festivals. She is also an examiner and the Registrar for Vanguard Examinations, a board which examines the full range of Poetry, Prose, Drama and Spoken English.

As well as adjudicating Janet is the Speech & Drama secretary of the Bristol Festival of Music, Speech and Drama.

Her teaching is now mainly at Badminton School, Bristol, as well as in private practice. In past years she has run a Youth Theatre Group, “Blue Lodge Drama” which won awards at the Bristol and Avon One-Act Festivals. Experience of Festivals goes back over 50 years for Janet as she first competed in Bristol as a four-year old and even now she is a member of a Group Speaking team which performs at Festivals and gives Recitals.

Janet is looking forward to adjudicating at North Devon Performing Arts Festival and sharing in the excitement and creativity of the performers.

Instrumental:

Ailsa Howarth BA, PGCA

Ailsa Howarth studied the piano with Max Pirani at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was awarded many solo piano prizes. She continued her studies later with Peter Wallfisch and Guy Jonson, and pursued a solo performing career.

A Norwegian Government scholarship enabled her to study and research Norwegian piano music and songs at Oslo University, and she became particularly interested in the works of Kjerulf, subsequently graduating in Music and Norwegian at the University of East Anglia. She has given solo performances in many parts of the UK and Norway, and also for Anglia Television.

She now teaches at the Cheltenham Ladies’ College and has a vibrant private practice. She also examines grades and diplomas for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, both in the UK and in Norway and Sweden, where she enjoyed working in Norwegian again. She has adjudicated widely at home and abroad, and is looking forward to her visit to the North Devon Festival.

Caroline Diffley ARCM

Born in the Brighouse and Rastrick area of Yorkshire, Caroline Diffley attended Badminton School, Bristol, after which she went on to study the piano at the Royal College of Music in London. While at the College she gained diplomas in both piano teaching and piano performing; her teachers were Lamar Crowson, David Parkhouse and Malcolm Binns. She also spent a term at the Academia Chigiana in Siena, working with both Guido Agosti and with the pianist Arturo Michelangeli.

During a teaching career spanning four decades, she has taught in Kent (at the Kent Music School), in Oxford (at the Dragon School), and widely in the South West. She taught piano at Wells Cathedral School, working with both specialist and main-school students, and at Dartington College of Arts for twelve years, and now runs a private teaching practice in Exeter, as well as working for the South West Music School both as a tutor and as a mentor. Caroline is an extremely experienced Associated Board examiner, and has examined all over the UK and the Far East, as well as in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. She is also on the diploma examining panel, the Presenter Panel and is a Music Medals moderator. She has been a mentor on the CT ABRSM course and is currently a busy adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals. She has also published articles on various aspects of piano teaching and learning.

She has two grown-up children and lives in Exeter with her husband, who is a Professor of Italian.

 Vocal:

Melanie Armistead, BA

Melanie Armitstead studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio after taking a degree in Russian and French at Durham University. She began her career with Scottish Opera Go Round singing Micaela in Carmen. She was then taken on by the main Company to sing Tatyana in Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan Tutte by Mozart and The Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. She subsequently appeared as a soloist with Kent Opera, Opera North, Opera Northern Ireland, English National Opera and The Chatêlet in Paris, and understudied Valerie Masterson in the role of Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare by Handel at the Garnier Opera House in Paris.

Recital and concert performances have been the mainstay of Melanie’s career. She has performed in countless festivals at home and abroad specialising in French and Russian song repertoire and themed recitals including poetry and prose. Melanie is a recitalist for BBC Radio 3 and has enjoyed working with BBC Concert Orchestra, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, Hallé, Manchester Camerata, English String Orchestra and the Bournemouth Orchestras with whom she has performed numerous oratorios, Korngold’s Die Katrin, (Marguerite) Mozart Concert Arias, Canto a Seviglia by Granados, Ravel’s Scheherazade, Britten’s Les Illuminations and The Mikado, (Yum Yum), by Gilbert and Sullivan. She has enjoyed an international career, concerts and recitals taking her to Japan, Oman, Russia, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Gran Canaria. She was the soloist in Bach’s Magnificat at the Leipzig Festival and spent three weeks at sea taking part in the Music Festival at Sea with Richard Baker on his travels to America.

Orchestral concerts include Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Ėté with the Cheltenham Symphony Orchestra, Ch’io mi scordi di te, Mozart, with the Wessex Strings, Dies Natalis by Finzi and Mozart’s C minor Mass for the North Cornwall Festival, the latter with Exsultate Jubilate for the South Chiltern Choral Society, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Sherborne Abbey. Recently she sang Knoxville Summer of 1915 by Samuel Barber with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Spirit of England by Elgar.
Melanie is the Senior Singing Teacher at Sherborne Girls’ School in Dorset. Over the last 10 years she has prepared senior students for grades 7 and 8 and the ABRSM Diploma, and helped numerous others to find a more secure technique in singing and therefore a greater enjoyment. Last year she produced the opera Venus and Adonis by Blow. At home Melanie runs a small Madrigal Ensemble and enjoys travelling to adjudicate at Festivals and Competitions around the country. She has twice been invited to adjudicate the Cecil Drew Oratorio Prize at the Birmingham Conservatoire and has recently returned from Hong Kong where she spent several weeks adjudicating at the Annual Schools Music Festival.