Meet the team

John is Artistic Advisor to CMWS and a Trustee. His career has included lecturing appointments at all North Eastern Universities, heading Gateshead’s outstanding Music Service for over 30 years, and performing throughout Europe and the Americas as a specialist performer on period keyboard instruments.

He is active as a composer; his output includes symphonies and concerti, children’s musicals, orchestral movements and many songs both for adults and younger children, many of which were published.

A student at Newcastle University, John also has a postgraduate qualification for research into early 18^th Century Italian keyboard music. He has recorded 5 LPs (not 78s), 5 cassettes and 11 CDs, mainly with his ensemble Concert Royal but also as a soloist.

He directed the Gateshead Youth Orchestra for over twenty years, organising 19 overseas tours as well as many events in the North of England in such prestigious venues as The Sage Gateshead, The Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle, Gibside Chapel in Rowlands Gill and, of course, Whickham St. Mary the Virgin Parish Church.

An examiner for the ABRSM for over two decades, he was course leader for the CT ABRSM diploma in venues as diverse as Sheffield, Gateshead and Edinburgh. Examining work takes him regularly to Ireland, Scotland and the North of England.

Hobbies include travel, football, reading, collecting and restoring old pianos and looking after three grandchildren, all of whom show musical potential!