Marcia Carr
MPhil(Lon)., BA(Hons)., ALAM., LLCM., ALCM., FRSA
Speech and Drama, and Musical Theatre
Marcia trained at Royal Holloway University of London in music, dance and drama, and currently facilitates workshops and directs shows for universities, drama schools and theatre departments internationally. She is a qualified Feldenkrais Practitioner, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She’s toured internationally, winning Best Actor 2007 Buxton Festival, Best Ensemble Stage and Television Award, Best Fringe Performer 2000, and nominated for Best Production The Little Girl who was too fond of matches. Marcia is co-founder of Arts OUtburst and Co-Director of the Creative Blast Company, delivering educational packages, training young people, developing choirs, Community Companies and producing shows touring nationally and internationally in both theatrical and non-theatrical environments. She’s an Associate Artist with the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, directing shows, developing workshops, on
audition panels and leading training. She is also Deputy Chief Examiner for LAMDA.
Kim Gilbert BA(Hons), LGSM (Hons), LLAM (Hons), LALAM (Hons), Dip ELS, Cert Ed.
Kim originally trained as a professional actress at GSA and studied for an LGSM at the
Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She also has a First-Class Honours degree in English
Literature and Language Studies. After acting professionally for many years in a range of TV,
voiceover and theatre work, Kim has dedicated the past 35 yrs to teaching and directing
plays and musical productions. Kim also examined for Lamda for a number of years and
currently runs her own private drama studio which specialises in developing excellence in all
forms of performance and communication skills. Kim has recently compiled and written a
range of acting books suited for festival and audition work. Kim is a strong supporter of the
festival movement. She encourages students to participate at Speech & Drama Festivals as
she believes that performing at local Festivals provides a vital learning experience for young
people whilst also giving them a supportive platform from which to perform.
Samantha Tucker
Samantha’s love of performing started at the age of four, taking part in both amateur and professional productions and she went on to study Acting, Directing and Textual Analysis as part of her Drama degree, graduating from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Samantha is a passionate supporter of the festival movement and is proud to be part of a movement that gives entrants the chance to showcase their work in an encouraging environment and enables them to take their work to the next level! Samantha has taught Speech & Drama for more than 20 years and was principal of her own Drama Studio in Haverhill, Suffolk for over 10 years and directed numerous productions. Samantha has been teaching Speech and Drama at St Faiths School, Cambridge for 15 years. Samantha is an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals and is a member for the Society of Teachers of Speech and
Drama.
Helen Sanderson GRSM (HONS)., DIPRCM ARCM (PG)
Helen Sanderson epitomises life as a 21 st Century guitarist; her delivery as a performer, educator, arranger, composer and creative entrepreneur is reflected in the broad spectrum of guitar studies at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Helen’s international performing career has centred on chamber music with performances at the Southbank Centre, Kings Place and the Guitar Foundation of America and CD recordings with the VIDA Guitar Quartet, James Bowman and Mark Wilde. Alongside her love of performing her impetus to create opportunities for young guitarists led her to founding the music education charity, Guitar Circus, home of the National Youth Guitar Ensemble and the World Youth Guitar Festival of which she is Artistic Director. These roles have given invaluable experience in arts management and have fuelled Helen’s interest in extending the repertoire for the instrument, in particular for guitar ensemble. Helen’s work is regularly chosen for the ABRSM, Trinity College and London College of Music exam boards and developing this vital
craft of arranging and composing has a prominent place in RWCMD’s programme. She is often invited to competition juries including BBC Young Musician of the Year, Guitar Foundation of America, London International Guitar Competition, Koblenz Guitar Competition and most memorably, the Sky Arts televised series “Guitar Star.
Luise Horrocks MA(Oxon)., AECM., PGCA., PGCE., HON TCL VOICE
After studies at Oxford University and the Royal College of Music, Luise’s career as a professional Soprano soloist took her throughout the UK, Europe, America and South Africa. She has held teaching positions in both the Junior and Senior departments of Birmingham Conservatoire
and as a visiting lecturer at Birmingham University. She has worked as a mentor on the CT ABRSM panel and as a vocal coach on residential courses for singers. She has also coached and conducted the Wyre Forest Young Voices choir. Luise now runs an extensive private teaching practice and regularly gives masterclasses, choral workshops, presentations and teacher sessions both at home and abroad. She has recently been appointed as the singing teacher at Keble College, Oxford and has become a Vocal First Aider. For many years as Associate Chief Examiner in music for Trinity College London, Luise worked on syllabus setting and leading projects for diplomas, examiner training and teacher support. Publications include a series of books on Musical Theatre repertoire and graded songbooks. In 2016 she was awarded an Hon TCL.
Luise is a highly experienced adjudicator member of the British & International Federation of Festivals and was privileged to be an adjudicator for the inaugural Olga and Jules Craen Young Musician of the Year award in Mumbai, India and for the first Maltese Islands Festival in Valletta, Malta as well as adjudicating and running workshops at the Singapore Performing Arts Festival.
Nadia Lasserson B.Mus(Lond),ARAM,GRSM,ARCM
Manns Memorial Prize winner while a student at the Royal Academy of Music, Nadia is an experienced performer of lieder, chamber music and concertos. .She has recorded the rarely-heard Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin and Piano and the Schubert Notturno with violinist Peter Fisher with whom she gave many concerts in 1997, to mark the various centenaries of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Korngold in Festivals at home and in Germany, Cyprus and Croatia where they also gave a recital of British music at the 19th International EPTA Congress and now recently, they have been giving concerts in a Festival in the Loire Valley in France. As an accompanist, she is in much demand for Masterclasses and Workshops. She performed several Mozart Concertos and Beethoven’s Triple, Concerto & Beethoven Piano Concerto no 2 in Bb with the European Doctors’ Orchestra (founded by her late husband Dr. Michael Lasserson) in the Cadogan Hall and in Bangalore, India, and more recently, Mozart and a Bach Concerto with five members of her family in the orchestra. In 2011, she premiered a concerto composed for her by Rupert Bond in Plymouth. She hopes to perform the complete Mozart concertos over the next years and recently performed the Coronation Concerto in D K537, her seventh in the series and the Emperor Concerto by Beethoven.
Nadia has a wide experience of piano teaching. She was Head of Keyboard and ran the Chamber Music Programme for 80 girls each week at James Allens Girls School for 15 years and is in her 49th year there. She also teaches at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College of Music Junior Departments in London. She also runs a private teaching studio in Herne Hill.
Joseph Tong
Joseph Tong has established a reputation as one of the most versatile and imaginative pianists
of his generation. He studied at Wells Cathedral School, Cambridge University and at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Christopher Elton. Much in demand as a soloist, duo pianist and chamber musician, Joseph made his Wigmore Hall recital debut in 1997 as winner of the Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award and now gives regular recitals throughout the UK and Europe.
Joseph Tong has been particularly associated with the piano music of Jean Sibelius, having
recorded three discs of a complete cycle for the Quartz label to critical acclaim and performing regularly in Finland over recent years. He has been invited to play at the Korpo Sibelius Festival and at the Joensuu Music Festival in 2024. Other recent projects have included a new commission from the British composer David Matthews, a set of Five Trees which Joseph premiered at the Three Choirs Festival. He also performed the new work at the Sibelius Museum in Turku as part of a collaboration with the Åbo University Foundation. Joseph was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2008 and has been a music adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals since 2019. He is one of the senior piano tutors at Wells Cathedral School and coordinator of the Wells International Piano Summer School.
Kate Martin BA(Hons)., Performing Arts (Dance)., PGCE
Kate studied for a degree in dance, and then worked as a professional dancer in a rival company to Hot Gossip in London and abroad in the early 1980s, as well as acting in T.V. programmes including ‘By the Sword Divided’, ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’ and ‘Shine on Harvey Moon’. She worked as a choreographer at The Royal Theatre in Northampton, before studying for a P.G.C.E as a dance specialist and then working as Head of Dance, Advisory Teacher of Dance, helping to organise the All England Midlands North Regionals and choreographer for a student touring dance company.
Throughout the years Kate has maintained close contact with the festival movement, being on the committee for Northampton Festival, working as an adjudicator’s scribe and entering her own children successfully.
Kate now works as a Dance and Musical Theatre History Lecturer at Urdang Academy, London and thoroughly enjoys working with students in vocational training as well as maintaining contact with the state sector as an A Level examiner. She is more than happy to adjudicate virtually, either for live or recorded online festivals and has spent the summer of 2020 lecturing online and editing professional showreels for agents so is very familiar with the virtual world!
RWB Arts Festival 