Category: Festival

Australian born guitarist Craig Ogden is one of the most exciting artists of his generation. He studied guitar from the age of seven and percussion from the age of thirteen. He is the youngest instrumentalist to have received a Fellowship Award from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

One of the UK’s most recorded guitarists, his recordings for Virgin/EMI, Chandos, Nimbus, Hyperion, Sony and Classic FM have received wide acclaim. Craig’s five Classic FM albums all shot straight to No.1 in the UK classical chart and he is one of Classic FM’s most played artists.
Craig Ogden has performed concertos with all the main UK orchestras plus many abroad. He regularly appears as soloist and chamber musician at major venues and collaborates with the UK’s top artists and ensembles. Craig enjoys performing new works for guitar and gives the world premiere of a concerto written for him by Andy Scott with the Northern Chamber Orchestra in Manchester in November 2017. Composers David Knotts and Geoffrey Gordon are also writing concertos for Craig. He has presented programmes on BBC Radio 3, BBC Northern Ireland and ABC Classic FM (Australia).

Craig Ogden is Head of Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Visiting Lecturer at London’s Royal College of Music, Adjunct Fellow of the University of Western Australia, Associate Artist of The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Curator of Craig Ogden’s Big Guitar Weekend at The Bridgewater Hall and Director of the Dean & Chadlington Summer Music Festival.

Andrew, born in Berkshire, UK, holds UK music degrees from Surrey ((UniS), Guildford), Bristol and Cambridge (St Catharine’s College) universities, and with the Open University (OU) (both a BA (Hons) in Humanities with Music with First-Class Honours and a Postgraduate Certificate in Humanities with Music (PGCert (OU)) with Distinction) in addition to an MMus(Perf) from Bath Spa University (BSU), UK with Distinction in which Andrew specialised in Performance as a piano accompanist, as well as the ARCM, ARCO, LRSM, LGSM, LTCL, FLCM music-diplomas (awarded mostly in piano accompaniment/performance) and the FRSA.

A performing classical pianist, specialising in piano accompaniment* relatively early on whilst at school, he is also an organist, a harpsichordist (focusing mainly in accompaniment in both these instruments as well) and a choral singer (tenor).

Andrew is an active international ABRSM Examiner (classical/grades/ARSM performance-diploma), a former CT ABRSM Mentor (piano) and a former ABRSM Jazz Examiner, an active international BIFF Music Adjudicator and has been accepted as a panel-member (in reserve) to examine GCSE Music (appraising/listening (written) paper) with WJEC (CBAC) Eduqas. A committed and experienced piano/jazz piano tutor (at all ages/levels and in a wide variety of different learning-environments since 1990), Andrew is a permanent Visiting Piano/Jazz Piano Tutor with a part-time post at two UK independent schools in both Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, a permanent part-time Visiting Music Tutor position (in various capacities) at a Music Academy in Oxfordshire, UK and also gives piano tuition privately on a consultative/occasional basis.

In preparation for a UK university Music full-time lecturing-post, Andrew is presently researching for a PhD (in Music) at St John’s College, University of Durham, UK with a doctoral-dissertation on the musicological subject entitled: ‘A Study of the Carol’ and also continues to enjoy occasional (advanced) piano accompaniment studies at the Royal College of Music (RCM), London, UK (externally) with Gordon Fergus-Thompson, international concert-pianist as part of Andrew’s own ongoing professional development.

Andrew has always had a real affinity for both choral and vocal music, nurtured since beginning his musical upbringing as a UK Cathedral Choir School nine-year-old boy-chorister, and he continually takes special pleasure in accompanying choirs, choral-ensembles and singers, and is also one of the resident organists at a local church in Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK near to where he lives.

Particularly adept in the art of improvisation and also having periodically explored composition (which has led to a number of non-published (and personal) compositions to date), Andrew’s preferred choice of instrument for his performance as a piano accompanist is a Steinway Model D.

*and collaborative piano

Soprano soloist, choral conductor and voice teacher, Elizabeth began singing lessons with Betty Middleton when she was eleven years old, and quickly established herself on the Festivals circuit in the North of England, winning many prizes in the process. At eighteen she went to the Guildhall School of Music, where she studied with Joyce Newton and Anna Berenska, spending a year on the Opera Course there.

Whilst at the Guildhall she won the English Song Prize, was a semi- finalist in the Susan Longfield Award and gained several scholarships for further study.

On leaving the Guildhall, she studied with Erich Vertheer and John Kitchener. Using her maiden name (Watson), Elizabeth’s singing career took her all over England, France and Eire, before she decided to concentrate on her teaching career.

She now teaches at a highly respected girls’ school in Oxford.