North Cheshire Wind Orchestra Conductors
Musical Director – Dr Catherine Parsonage
Catherine
studied Music at the University of York, where she conducted ensembles
including the University Big Band and student Concert Band and
Orchestra. She also performed in many groups as a clarinettist,
saxophonist and recorder player. Upon graduating in 1997 she was awarded
the John Paynter Prize in recognition of her contribution to the Music
Department. Catherine then worked as music teacher in secondary schools
in Newcastle and London and obtained the Postgraduate Certificate in
Education. During this time, she also worked and performed with the
National Youth Music Theatre and was a founder member of Payback, one of
London’s leading function bands.
Catherine is currently head of the Centre for Jazz Studies UK at Leeds College of Music, where she also teaches in the areas of critical musicology, popular music and jazz on undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Catherine has a Ph.D. from City University, London, and her book "The Evolution of Jazz in Britain 1880-1935" was published by Ashgate in 2005. Her work has also been published in recognised journals, (articles in British Postgraduate Musicology Online and Popular Music can be accessed online) and has been presented at national and international conferences. She has been awarded a prestigious Edison Fellowship at the British Library in 2006-7 to study recordings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Catherine is the member of the editorial boards of journals The Source: Challenging Jazz Criticism (LCM), Jazz Perspectives (Routledge) and Studies in Musical Theatre (Interim Publications). She is a member of the Executive Committees of the Jazz Research Network and Jazz Education Advisory Panel, both run by Jazz Services, and the British Association of Symphonic Bands and Wind Ensembles.
Catherine is active as an conductor and instrumentalist in both classical and popular styles. She is currently Musical Director of Dr Jazz and the Cheshire Cats Big Band and the North Cheshire Wind Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra. Catherine has participated in conducting masterclasses with George Hurst, Neil Thomson, Peter Seymour, Elgar Howarth and Guy Woolfenden and reached the final of the NAYO British Reserve Insurance Conducting Competition. Other recent conducting work includes assistant musical director for productions of Dido and Aeneas performed in the Lowry, Manchester, and the opera Bandanna (Daron Hagen/Paul Muldoon) at the Parr Hall, Warrington.
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Principal Guest Conductor – Mark Heron
Mark
Heron studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and the
Royal Northern College of Music. Following a successful chamber music
career with the Nemo Brass Quintet and freelance work with many of the
UK’s professional symphony orchestras, Mark undertook conducting studies
at the RNCM. He has also worked intensively in masterclasses with Neeme
& Paavo Järvi, Jorma Panula, Mark Elder and Gianandrea Noseda. In 2005
Mark was awarded first prize in the Neeme Järvi conducting competition,
held in Estonia, and in 2006 he worked with Sir Colin Davis and the
London Symphony Orchestra as one of three young conductors selected by
the orchestra for their mentoring programme.
His diverse musical interests have resulted in an unusually wide range of work: symphony, chamber and wind orchestras, contemporary music and opera all feature regularly in his schedule. In the UK Mark is the Music Director of the Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Mozart Orchestra and the Manchester University Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the conducting faculty at the Royal Northern College of Music. Future engagements include the Wilmslow Symphony, New Bristol Sinfonia and Hallam Sinfonia as well as education projects with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Overseas, Mark works regularly with the Pori Sinfonietta in Finland, whom he first conducted in 2002. Other professional orchestras he has worked with recently include the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Pärnu City Orchestra, St Petersburg Festival Orchestra and Kaiserslautern Symphony Orchestra.
At the RNCM he works with a wide variety of orchestras and ensembles and has made commercial cd recordings with the RNCM Wind Orchestra. He has been the principal conductor of the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Israel since 2004, and in 2007/8 will work with Katabatic Winds, the youth wind orchestra attached to the Sage, Gateshead. Mark has a strong interest in contemporary music. He has led several commissioning projects involving composers from the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Finland and United States and has literally dozens of world, European and UK premieres to his name. In 2006 he conducted the European premiere of leading American composer Daron Hagen’s opera, Bandanna. He also plays an active part in the RNCM’s renowned composer festivals, having worked with Magnus Lindberg, Giya Kancheli, Mark Anthony Turnage, Unsuk Chin and others.
Alongside his conducting engagements, Mark teaches conducting privately and at the RNCM, Manchester University, Canford Summer School and the Royal Air Force.
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