Classical Music Staff

• Centre Management Team
• Classical Music Staff
• Pop and Jazz Staff
• Music Technology Staff
• Performing Arts Staff
• Academic Support Staff
• Technical Support Staff
• Instrumental Staff
• Vocal Staff

BA(HONS) MUSIC COURSE LEADER/HEAD OF COMPOSITION

Dr Mark Bellis
PhD, BMus, ATCL, PGCE

Mark’s specialisms are composition and Music History. Originally from Chester, Mark studied composition at Cardiff with Dr David Wynne and at Durham University with David Lumsdaine and John Casken and was awarded a PhD in Composition from Durham. He has composed a large scale work for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and has had performances at The Purcell Room, London and on Radio 3. Last Christmas, his carol ‘Unto Us a Boy Is Born’ was performed in a service at Westminster Abbey.

CURRICULUM MANAGER: HIGHER EDUCATION/HEAD OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Charles Hine
ARAM, DipRAM, LRAM, PGCE

Charles Hine is a prize-winning graduate of the Royal Academy of Music. He has achieved distinction as a solo and orchestral clarinettist as well as being a founder member of the Vega Wind Quintet. Charles has also developed a career as a conductor of Wind Orchestras and other groups including the British Clarinet Ensemble. He has taught in a wide range of educational establishments including posts in Rome, the Cairo Conservatoire and the Royal College of Music.

HEAD OF MUSIC BUSINESS STUDIES

Julia Orpen
BA (Hons), PGCE

Julia Orpen specialises in lecturing on all aspects of the music business. She began her professional career in music publishing, moving on to found her own music agency that both promoted concerts and represented artists, including Ifor James, The Parley of Instruments and the Schiller Trio. She now divides her time between teaching and running a musicians’ advisory service.

HEAD OF CONTEMPORARY STRINGS

Tim Pells
BA, ARAM, LRAM, PGCE

Tim is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (BA ’77), The Banff School of Fine Arts (Jazz Performance), and the Royal Academy of Music (Performer’s and Advanced Courses). He was Guitar Organiser for the Inner London Education Authority from 1983 to 1990 and has worked in every level of music education since 1969. Tim is Mentor for Guitar on the National Certificate of Teaching course run by the Associated Board (CT-ABRSM), and Head of Guitar at the London Centre for Young Musicians. He has performed and recorded worldwide with the English Guitar Quartet, and current projects include commissioning new pieces for the Quartet. He performs with Andrew Allen in the Gemini Duo, accompanies soprano Elizabeth Clarke and cellist Sylvia Moore, and performs with Ramon Goose in an acoustic clues duo.

HEAD OF VOCAL STUDIES/COURSE LEADER – NATIONAL DIPLOMA AND NATIONAL AWARD IN MUSIC

Ian Ray
FRCO, LRAM, ARCM

Ian Ray is very active as a voice teacher, and regularly performs as a pianist and organist. As a choral director over the years he has worked with many of the most distinguished solo singers in the UK, including Elizabeth Harwood, Brian Rayner-Cook and more recently Jeremy White, Justin Lavender and Sally Silver. He has a passionate interest in ensuring healthy phonation in all styles of music making, and he is an enthusiastic advocate of the Estill principles of singing technique. Ian advises on singing teaching at Colchester Institute, directs the choirs and opera/music theatre workshop. He also directs the music at Lion Walk Church in Colchester where he organises a popular series of lunch time concerts and conducts the Colchester Choral Society.

Dr Jon Banks
DPhil

Dr Jon Banks is a specialist performer on early and Oriental string instruments who has toured and recorded with groups including The Burning Bush, The Dufay Collective, Red Byrd, Joglaresa, the Jocelyn Pook Ensemble, Sirinu and The Tivoli Café Band. Jon lectures on world music at Anglia Ruskin University and Tunings and Temperaments at London Metropolitan University.  His recent publications include a book, The Instrumental Consort Repertory of the Fifteenth Century, and a chapter for the forthcoming Cambridge History of Musical Performance. He studied music at Exeter Colege, Oxford and completed a D.Phil there on the renaissance motet and classical rhetoric. Other activities include regular performances at the Globe Theatre, work with Iranian and Middle Eastern ensembles and freelance recording for film and TV.

Matthew Simpkins
MA (Oxon), PGCE, ATCL

Matt’s professional musical experience encompasses classical, folk, jazz, avant-garde and rock. Following four years as Press and Marketing Manager at the Colchester Mercury Theatre, he produces music and scripts for media companies, writes and reviews for magazines ranging from Choir and Organ to International Piano, works as session violinist and Hammond organist, and records and performs with his bands "FuzzFace" and "Rev Simpkins and the Phantom Notes".

Matt is the Course Leader for the National Diploma in Music

CURRICULUM MANAGER: OPERATIONS AND PROJECTS/HEAD OF MUSIC IN EDUCATION

Phil Toms
MSc, BA (Hons), ALCM, QTS

Phil Toms is an active musician in the area, specialising in double bass, piano and keyboards. His musical interests bridge the gap between classical, jazz, music theatre and popular music. Phil has a strong background in music technology and, having spent the past ten years teaching in primary and secondary schools, he is currently lecturing on music in education and musical theatre. He is developing community outreach projects, such as the Clacton Music Centre and is the department webmaster. In 2004 Phil was awarded the Leader of the Year Award for Outstanding Service to Youth by the Jack Petchey Foundation.

HEAD OF KEYBOARD STUDIES

Lesley Young
MMus, BMus, ARCM, LMusA, AMusA, PGCE

A prize winner in national and international piano competitions both at home and abroad, Australian pianist Lesley Young has combined a performing career spanning three continents with teaching, examining and adjudicating, and commissioned a number of new works. By the age of twenty she had made many radio and television broadcasts, played at the Sydney Opera House and appeared as soloist with leading Australian orchestras; her Wigmore Hall debut followed three years later. A graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, RNCM and Royal College of Music, Lesley studied with Max Olding, Ryszard Bakst and Yonty Solomon and in master classes with Vlado Perlemuter, Jorge Bolet (at the Edinburgh Festival), Ronald Smith and Sergei Dorensky, amongst others. Lesley’s specialist research interests include 19th century piano music, Australian composers, the music of George Gershwin and the cognitive psychology of music. Following a music lectureship at James Cook University, Lesley became Head of Keyboard Studies at Colchester Institute in 1995, where she teaches piano and lectures on the MA, BA (Hons) and ND music programmes in research, music literature and performance.