Instrumental Section
Adjudicator
Gwyn Parry-Jones MusB, GRSM, ARMCM and PGCE
Gwyn Parry-Jones has a rich and varied background, having wide experience both as a performer and as a music educator. As a performer, he has played with many of the world’s great conductors and soloists, such as Barbirolli, Rattle, Rostropovich and Janet Baker. Gwyn has appeared in a solo or chamber music role in the UK and round the world, including at the Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Centre and Teatro Monumental, Madrid. He was a founder-member of the groups ZigZag and The Five Winds, and was an instrumental soloist on the award-winning CD of Arvo Pärt’s Passio, recorded in the presence of the composer.
After starting his career in education at Millfield School, Gwyn went on to teach in the universities of Salford, Manchester, Gothenberg (Sweden) and Oxford. Having completed ten years as Director of Music Activities at Reading University, he left academia to devote more time to his conducting and other musical pursuits. As conductor of the flourishing community choir at Fleet in Hampshire, he performs a wide range of choral music, and has conducted in Prague, Amsterdam, Paris and Ghent.
Gwyn has always taken a keen interest in the development of young musical talent, and is an experienced member of the mentoring team at Music for Youth, responsible for the National Festival of Music for Youth and the Schools Proms in the Albert Hall. In recognition of his work in this direction, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and recently became an Honorary Fellow of Reading University.
Gwyn is a composer and arranger too. Most of his numerous published works are for wind instruments or voices,several having been commissioned by educational organisations.