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PAUL HARRIS (WOODWIND & BRASS) is one of the UK’s most influential and experienced music educationalists with over 600 publications to his name, amongst them the acclaimed Improve your Sight Reading, series, Clarinet Basics, Improve Your Teaching! and Teaching Beginners. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won the August Manns Prize for outstanding performance in clarinet playing. In great demand as a teacher, composer, writer, and public speaker, his inspirational master-classes and workshops continue to influence thousands of young musicians and teachers all over the world in both the principles and practice of musical performance and education.
RUTH HARTE (PIANO) won a scholarship and many prizes at the Royal Academy of Music where she studied piano with Vivian Langrish. Her first Wigmore Hall recital led to a very active concert career and broadcasts, both solo and in chamber music. Recent tours in Europe, Canada, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand have also included lecture-recitals on performance and pedagogy.
Ruth is in much demand for master-classes and adjudicating. She has been an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and continues as a mentor on their Professional Development Courses. She was elected Warden of the Private Teachers’ Section of the Incorporated Society of Musicians in 1992-93. She is a Fellow and former professor of the Royal Academy of Music and was appointed MBE in the New Year Honours in 2007 for services to music..
ELIZABETH RITCHIE (VOICE) studied singing and piano at the Royal Academy of Music, and then at the Salzburg Mozarteum and the London Opera Centre before joining Glyndebourne. Following Glyndebourne, Elizabeth has performed as a soloist with Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North and New Sadlers Wells, as well as in productions abroad. She has sung frequently at the South Bank, at the Wigmore Hall, and with choral societies throughout the country. With a broad classical and popular repertoire, she has compiled and presented many programmes combining words and music before music societies and other audiences. Elizabeth has made a number of recordings, and has been heard on Radio 3, Classic FM, and local radio.
Elizabeth is a professor of singing at the Royal Academy of Music, where she was for some time responsible for classes in English Song, and where she was elected a Fellow in 2007. A number of her pupils have been successful in international competitions, including finalists in the Cardiff Singer of the World, and many have secured work with major opera companies. She has taught by invitation in Germany and Iceland, and at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice, and teaches privately in London and elsewhere. Elizabeth gives master-classes, participates in summer schools in England and abroad, and is well known as an adjudicator.
RUTH WALTERS (STRINGS) studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Yfrah Neaman, graduating with distinction and several awards and prizes. After further studies in Geneva (with Ayla Erduran), she has played with various ensembles, including the English Chamber Orchestra, Covent Garden Opera, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and the Miklos Ensemble, which she led for several years. She has been guest performer at numerous festivals across the continent and given recitals and concerto performances. She has also recorded for the BBC and currently holds a teaching position at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.