We are pleased to announce this year’s Summer Course faculty!
As usual, the amazing visiting tutors listed below will be joined by members of our own faculty. We are looking forward to a fantastic week JAM-packed with music and activities!
Abigail Burrows – Flute
We are thrilled to welcome Abigail Burrows back to our Summer Course as part of our teaching faculty.
Abigail Burrows enjoys a varied musical career working mainly as a freelance orchestral player, session and pit musician. She teaches at the Royal Academy of Music junior department and previously taught at The Purcell School and Junior Guildhall.
Abbie freelances in numerous UK orchestras and West-End shows (including Les Misèrables, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera and The Lion King). A versatile performer, she has also worked with various commercial artists, playing at music festivals including Latitude, End of the Road, Donau (Vienna) Gone Wild, and Glastonbury.
An innovative and enthusiastic teacher, Abbie has been a guest artist on numerous flute events and courses, working with thousands of flute players. Her creative teaching style has earned her an international reputation, with several of her workshops being scheduled around the world. Prior to Junior Academy she previously taught at The Purcell School and Junior Guildhall. She has also been a resident tutor for Flute School London courses for eleven years and is a keen supporter of flute charity Flutewise – working for Liz Goodwin (Founder) since 2005.
Abbie studied with Anna Pope at The Purcell School, Susan Milan at The Royal College of Music and continued her studies with Michael Cox and Robert Winn. She currently lives on a houseboat on the River Medway and likes to spend her spare time at her seaside flat in Margate.
We are delighted to announce Charlie-Jade Jones as our vocal tutor again for our Summer Course.
Charlie-Jade is a singer, actress and singing teacher. She graduated with Distinction from The Royal Academy of Music and has since been awarded the title Licentiate of The Royal Academy of Music in Singing Teaching.
As an artist her work has included 10th Anniversary of Howard Goodall’s Love Story at Cadogan Hall, Jason Robert Brown’s Parade at Frogmore Paper Mill, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s State Fair at Cadogan Hall and Anything Goes, A Celebration of Cole Porter with The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, also at Cadogan Hall. In addition, her one-woman show The Soprano Behind The Screen has been featured by Elaine Paige on her show EP On Sunday on BBC Radio 2 and has toured a variety of UK venues. In October 2021 she released her debut album, Remember, which has been coined a ‘love letter’ to The Great American Songbook and is a proud Champion for Music for Dementia.
As a teacher, Charlie-Jade teaches singing at some of the UK’s leading performing arts establishments including Mountview, Guildford School of Acting, Laine Theatre Arts & Emil Dale Academy teaching on BA Hons Musical Theatre, Actor Musician and Acting courses and has also been a singing teacher for Italia Conti.
Charlie-Jade Jones – Singing
In addition to her LRAM, Charlie-Jade has studied with Anne-Marie Speed in The Estill Model (Levels 1& 2 and Estill For Singing Teachers), has trained in Mindfulness with Be Mindful’s NHS Approved MBCT Course and was one of the first certified Vocal Health First Aider’s accredited by Vocal Health Education. For more information please visit www.charlie-jadeJones.com
The Melos Saxophone Quartet
Bringing the element of cool to the Summer Course this year is the Melos saxophone quartet! This is incredibly exciting, particularly as one of the group members is a Jersey bean!
We are the Melos saxophone quartet! We formed in 2019 at the Guildhall school of music and drama. Our members are: Aidan on soprano, Charlotte on alto, Holly on tenor, and Dan on Baritone.
We’ve had some amazing experiences playing as a group. In April, as part of a group of outreach programmes, we played at the Royal London Hospital as lunchtime entertainment for staff, patient and families. We also do a number of private events, our most recent being Livery dinners for Salters company, The Worshipful company of carpenters, and the goldsmiths company.
In previous years, We’ve had some other amazing experiences too, such as playing with the London School of Contemporary Dance, and playing at… the band stand at Regents Park.
Our most exciting performance to date was with the Guildhall Symphonic Wind Orchestra in May 2023. We performed Warren Barker’s Capriccio for sax quartet and wind orchestra. It was a vivid performance and an incredible experience.
We are looking forward to working with all the talented students on the course and hoping to explore a variety of their talents through solo and chamber projects!
We are in the process of planning classes on chamber playing and performance, solo playing and performance confidence, big band coaching, jazz language and improvisation and maybe a taste of west end doubling. Overall, we hope to bring a taste of the London music scene to St Saviour!
Meurig Thomas – Piano
Our Piano Tutor for our Summer Course is Meurig Thomas (now a regular face at the Academy!).
Meurig is originally from Llangefni. He studied Music at the University of Sheffield and Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. He also has an MA in Music Education from the University of Reading and holds both the LRAM and ARCM diplomas as a piano teacher.
In a varied career in education, Meurig has worked as a Director Of Music in several schools within the UK, as a radio produced for the BBC and also as a Registered Inspector of Schools across Wales. He continues to broadcast frequently on television and radio and is busy as an Eisteddfod and Festival adjudicator. Recently he adjudicated the Gregynog Instrumental competition in Powys and the National Choral Eisteddfod in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is also a visiting teacher at the British Georgian Music Academy in Tiblisi.
Meurig is also an examiner and presenter for ABRSM, a post that has seen him work across Europe, South East Asia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.
Young-Pyo Lee – Violin
A regular on our Summer Course, Young Pyo Lee is back tutoring our string players.
Young Pyo Lee was born in Bordeaux, France. He studied at the Bordeaux Conservatory with Professors Jean-Luc Fort and Vladimir Nemtanu. Young Pyo moved to London in 2002 to study with Professors Yfrah Neaman and Jacqueline Ross at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he completed Bachelor of Music, PostGraduate Diploma, Advanced Instrumental Studies, and Master of Music. During his studies he benefited from the advice of, among others, Professor Lewis Kaplan. Throughout this time, Young Pyo played in the Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine, the London Symphony Orchestra (as part of the LSO Strings Scheme) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
He has taken part in Festivals such as Prussia Cove, the Holland Music Sessions, the Salzburg Mozarteum and Bowdoin (USA). As a chamber musician, he has performed in France, Spain, the USA, Switzerland, the UK, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic with the London Bela Trio, the Heath String Quartet and the Ensemble Z. Young-Pyo is a familiar face on Jersey, having taught on the summer music course Musique et Aventure since 2008. He combines teaching on the violin faculty of ‘London Music Masters’ with attending the Jersey Academy of Music on a weekly basis.
