Director: Nancy Litten
Nancy Litten, author of the Keyed Up series of electronic keyboard tutors (Alfred Music Publishing) founded NEKC in 2005 and will be directing their third national residential summer school in August 2011 at New Hall School, Chelmsford, Essex. As an electronic keyboard consultant, she has worked with the Federation of Music Services on the 'Common Approach' (Faber 2002), the ABRSM on the development of Music Medals, and more recently with Trinity Guildhall, developing the 2011 syllabus.
Since studying at the Royal Academy of Music on a piano scholarship, she has been involved in a great variety of musical activities, performing as a pianist and violinist, in solo, chamber, and orchestral settings. Teaching has involved piano, keyboard, violin, chamber music, singing, choirs, and musicianship in primary and secondary schools, boarding schools, specialist music schools, adult education, and her county music service. Since 1998 she has been an ABRSM examiner. In 2000 she set up a Keyboard Orchestra for Kent, concerned that keyboard players were not getting the same ensemble opportunities as other instrumentalists.
Associate Director: Kath Todd
Kath Todd graduated from Newton Park College, Bath, with a first class degree in education and music. She originally worked as a primary school teacher but in the last ten years has been a piano and keyboard teacher and accompanist for Solihull Music Service. She regularly composes and arranges music for her various keyboard ensembles, with one of her compositions being published as part of the ABRSM's Music Medals syllabus. Kath organises regular musical evenings showcasing instrumentalists from all disciplines for the Borough of Solihull.
Treasurer: Clinton Davis
Clinton acts as NEKC’s treasurer. Formerly a solicitor with experience in private practice and local government, he was ordained in 1980 and is a priest in the Church of England. His non-theological interests range from current affairs to narrow gauge railways.
Advisor: Mike Adcock
Mike Adcock is a musician and composer who has recorded and performed in a wide range of musical styles, with a particular interest in different forms of improvisation. In 1997 he began working for Hertfordshire Music Service as a peripatetic keyboard teacher, developing an inclusive approach to learning which culminated in his taking part in a pilot scheme for the Wider Opportunities programme. He is currently teaching keyboard for Gloucestershire Music utilising material designed to encourage intuitive as well as more formal approaches to playing and is planning to publish some of this material in the near future.
Advisor: Rosemary Kemp
Rosemary Kemp, formerly a scholarship pupil and prize winner at the Royal College of Music London, performed and taught electronic keyboard, piano and harpsichord professionally. She is a qualified secondary school teacher with post-graduate qualifications in special needs. She was a contributor to A Common Approach for the Federation of Music Services and has been a moderator for the ABRSM Music Medals. She was Keyboard Co-ordinator for East Sussex Music Service prior to her current position teaching keyboards for Brighton and Hove Music and Performing Arts.
Advisor: Rory Marsden
Rory Marsden teaches piano and electronic keyboard for the Norfolk County Music Service. Over the course of his teaching career he has prepared students for concerts, exams and music festivals. He is also the keyboard player and founding member of the function band Rough Diamond. Rough Diamond have played gigs throughout East Anglia and the Midlands.
Advisor: Richard Davenport
Richard is currently the Teaching Development Manager for Kent Music. He has been a piano and keyboard teacher for over 30 years and has taught both in the classroom, and as a peripatetic. He has also run numerous keyboard ensembles at Music Centres and schools, and has tutored on the annual Kent Music Summer Schools held at Benenden School.
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