Arun Young Musicians aims to bring together talented young people from the local area with professional, experienced musicians who can provide valuable support and advice on performance and music more generally. Each year we select adjudicators for our festival who can offer precise and detailed feedback on performance alongside praise and commendation for success and achievement, with positive encouragement for further areas of growth and improvement.
In 2013 we were lucky to welcome two familiar faces back to The Festival.
Lisa Smith
(photo to come)
Lisa is the Curriculum Team Manager for Music at Chichester College, where she has been teaching music for the past 15 years. This busy and vibrant department offers post 16 students courses in classical music, jazz, music technology and popular music with an emphasis on performance. In January 2008 Lisa was honoured to be given the Chichester College Chairman’s Award for her work at the college.
Lisa completed her own training at Goldsmith’s college in June 1990 after achieving a music degree and this was followed by a masters degree in Performance awarded in June 1993. During this time she studied the piano with Ruth Gerald at the Royal College of Music and performed as a soloist in Britten’s Piano Concerto as part of her final year of degree studies as well as achieving an LTCL Performance Diploma.
Lisa has adjudicated at various local festivals and competitions including Arun Young Musicians.
Ben Hall
Ben Hall was awarded a competitive Exhibition in performance at the Royal College of Music studying piano under Yu Chun Yee and organ with Richard Popplewell, Master of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal. He was awarded a major Countess of Munster award for performance, Ian Fleming Bursary, The RCM Concerto Prize, ‘Haigh’ Bach Prize (organ), and was selected to represent the college as piano concerto soloist in the televised documentary The Royal College of Music – 100 years.
His MMus (RCM) Music Cognition Mechanisms and Performance Practice complemented a performing career which began with a London debut at St. John’s Smith Square in 1982.
A varied and extensive piano and organ repertoire has included first performances of the compositions of Sir Lennox Berkeley, Ronald Stephenson, Richard Rodney Bennett, Edward Smaldone and dedicated works. He has given Radio and Television Broadcast performances in Great Britain and Holland, Concerto, recital and masterclass appearances in great Britain, Italy, France, China and the USA. He is Head of Music at the University of Chichester, and Guest Professor of Piano at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music in Hubei, China.