Adjudicators

2010 Adjudicators CVs

DANCE - Jayne Cooper Dip.RBS(TTC).FISTD.ARAD

Jayne trained at Elmhurst and the Royal Ballet School Teacher’s Course. She performed professionally in cabaret and musical theatre, roles including ‘Dream’ Laurey in ‘Oklahoma!’ She has also worked in the cruise industry as a producer and choreographer. Jayne was Principal of her own dance school for eleven years and then Head of Dance at Stonelands School of Theatre Arts. Many of her former students are now professional dancers.

Currently she teaches the Royal Ballet School Junior Associates at the Southampton centre. She is Dance Tutor for Imperial Ballet FDI, CDE and higher teaching qualifications in Bristol, Bournemouth and Southampton and adjudicates for the British & International Federation of Festivals and All-England Dance.

SPEECH & DRAMA - Jenny Thornton AGSM (teaching), ALAM (Acting and Public Speaking), Certificate in Education, LISTD, CDE (Dance), Assistant Principal for Edexcel, Adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals.

Jenny trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama gaining awards for Character Acting and for Most Promising Teacher. Having taught drama and led the Performing Arts Team in a large Comprehensive for 10 years Jenny now enjoys running her own Performance Centre with ages from 4 years to adults delivering drama, dance and musical theatre. She is an Assistant Principal for Edexcel visiting schools in North london area and travelling internationally examining GCSE practical performances. Her work in a local secondary school involves taking A Level Drama and Theatre Studies and organising the after school drama club.

Jenny is looking forward to visiting the Longwell Green Eisteddfod and making it a very positive experience for all concerned. "Drama is a life skill that changed me from a stuttering introvert to a confident individual. We can give our children no better opportunity", says Jenny.

Ali Vowles, a local celebrity newsreader, has kindly agreed to to attend our festival and assist in judging the Television News Reader Classes.

VOCAL - Yvonne Patrick

Yvonne Patrick studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and began her professional career with D'Oyly Carte Opera Company performing numerous roles including Elsie Yeomen of the Guard and Josephine HMS Pinafore. She joined Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1994 and made her Festival debut in 1998. She made her Glyndebourne Touring Opera debut in the role of Despina Cosi fan tutte and in their production of The Bartered Bride she sang the role of Esmeralda which included training to be a trapeze artist! For Opera North she sang Musetta La Boheme. She has also worked for Welsh National Opera, Garsington Opera, Kentish Opera, Carl Rosa Opera Company, Swansea City Opera, Garden Opera, Opera Box and Opera Brava. Roles performed include Violetta, La Traviata, Fiordiligi Cosi fan tutte, Micaela Carmen, Pamina and First Lady The Magic Flute, Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Clorinda La Cenerentola, Cio cio san Madame Butterfly, Mimi La Boheme and Rosalinda and Adele Die Fledermaus. On a tour of Kenya, she was the soprano soloist in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem in Nairobi Cathedral. As a well-known performer of Gilbert and Sullivan, she was invited to appear as soprano soloist in the Centenary Gala Concert of the Philadelphia Savoy Company, the oldest Gilbert and Sullivan society in America. Yvonne is a regular guest performer on cruises and has also appeared on BBC Radio 2's Friday Night is Music Night.

Alongside her busy performing career, Yvonne works extensively for the education departments of the major opera companies in the UK and teaches privately and at Windlesham House School in West Sussex.

PIANO & INSTRUMENTAL - Carline Diffley

Born in the Brighouse and Rastrick area of Yorkshire, Caroline attended Badminton School, Bristol, after which she went on to study the piano at the Royal College of Music in London. While at the College she gained diplomas in both piano teaching and piano performing; her teachers were Lamar Crowson, David Parkhouse and Malcolm Binns. She also spent a term at the Academia Chigiana in Siena, working with both Guido Agosti and with the pianist Arturo Michelangeli.

During a teaching career spanning four decades, she has taught in Kent (at the Kent Music School), in Oxford (at the Dragon School), and widely in the South West. She taught piano at Wells Cathedral School, working with both specialist and main-school students, and at Dartington College of Arts for twelve years, and now runs a private teaching practice in Exeter, as well as working for the South West Music School both as a tutor and as a mentor. Caroline is an extremely experienced Associated Board examiner, and has examined all over the UK and the Far East, as well as in the USA and, most recently, Australia. She is also on the diploma examining panel, the Presenter Panel and is a Music Medals moderator. She has been a mentor on the CT ABRSM course and is currently a busy adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals. She has also published articles on various aspects of piano teaching and learning.

She has two grown-up children and lives in Exeter with her husband, who is a Professor of Italian.