The North Yorkshire Music Service are excited to welcome 100 pupils and staff on the annual residential course, held at Giggleswick School.
We are delighted to announce our guest artist and conducting team:
North Yorkshire Youth Orchestra
Ryan Watkins – Conductor
Ryan Watkins is a successful alumni of the North Yorkshire Music Service, having now returned to the service as the Assistant Head.
Ryan graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with first-class honours in 2015 and has made his name as a musician in the brass band world.
Having performed with many of the top British brass bands, he played Solo Trombone with the World Famous Brighouse & Rastrick Band for 7 years, touring, leading workshops and performing as a guest soloist throughout Europe.
He has also enjoyed branching out in to the orchestral world, performing with the Halle Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Gilbert & Sullivan National Orchestra and the Senbla Concert Orchestra.
Ryan is now the Music Director at Hepworth Band & Professional Conductor at Pemberton Band, having achieved qualifications with both bands for the National Championships and the British Open – the most esteemed contests in brass banding. He has also guest conducted the Slaithwaite Philharmonic and other brass bands throughout the country.
In 2012, Ryan was presented with the British Trombone Society’s “Young Trombonist of the Year” award and in 2014 progressed to the final of the BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Musician of the Year.
Ryan is extremely excited to work with the North Yorkshire Youth Orchestra this year.
North Yorkshire Big Band
Ralph Alder – Conductor
Ralph studied Jazz and Light Music at Leeds College of Music before taking a PGCE at Bretton Hall in Wakefield.
He was appointed as a peripatetic woodwind teacher for the NYCC Music Service in the Scarborough area in 1989, where he has remained ever since. He took over as the Scarborough Area Music Centre Manager in 2014 and is currently the Musical Director of Jazz Train. Ralph became involved with the County Ensembles in 1989 and has been the Musical Director of the County Big Band for many years.
When not teaching Ralph leads a busy and active life as a performing musician and is a member of several professional Big Bands and Jazz Ensembles, as well as running his own Clarinet and Saxophone Quartet.
Ralph will be retiring from the Music Service at the end of July and will be sorely missed by students and colleagues.
MATT ANDERSON – GUEST ARTIST
Born in the North Yorkshire Moors, the son of a music teacher, and based in Leeds for a time, saxophonist and Dankworth Prize-winning composer Matt Anderson has lived in London since 2015. His new album with the Matt Anderson Quartet Live at Leeds Jazz Festival was released on the 1st March 2024, with Jazzwise awarding four stars and commenting, “a well-integrated, swinging and supremely confident ensemble… [with] a soulful depth to his musicality that underpins the academic attention to detail”.
Becoming part of the fertile jazz scene in the capital, Anderson has since performed with artists/bands such as the Gareth Lockrane and Calum Gourlay big bands, Jamie Doe, Hannes Riepler and Ivo Neame. In Leeds, he performed and recorded with many of the city’s top musicians/composers including Jamie Taylor, Jamil Sheriff and Jiannis Pavlidis (in collaboration with Greg Hutchinson), and he has also toured in New Zealand, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. In 2023, he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for contributions to the music industry.
Matt is proud to be a D’Addario artist. He is also the founder of Hidden Threads Records.
North Yorkshire Training Orchestra
Andy Novell – Conductor
Originally from Leeds, Andy studied trumpet performance at Leeds College of Music, Newcastle University and Universität Salzburg. Primarily studying under George Parnaby, Andy has performed the Haydn and Hummel concertos with Northumberland Orchestral Society as well as Copland’s Quiet City with Newcastle Sinfonietta. Upon returning to Yorkshire in 2014 Andy began working for North Yorkshire Music Service as a brass instructor and is currently Instrumental Lead for Brass, Woodwind and Strings.
Andy plays Repiano Cornet for Rothwell Temperance Band, performing regularly across the county and at nationally prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and Birmingham Symphony Hall.
North Yorkshire Choir
Andrea Rhodes – Choir Director
Andrea has worked for the County Music Service since 2004, teaching voice, piano and whole class music and previously taught music in two secondary schools in South and West Yorkshire. She has been a member of both the Huddersfield Choral Society and the North Yorkshire Chorus and a member of the Northallerton Musical Theatre Company for over 25 years. Since starting teaching, Andrea has conducted several school choirs including most recently Northallerton School Choir, which she started in 2008. She has been the Musical Director of Northallerton Male Voice Choir for 10 years and has conducted the choir at the Sage in Gateshead as well as many different venues all over North Yorkshire including Selby Abbey in March 2020.
Andrea has been the accompanist for various groups and societies in the North East and Yorkshire and has also been the MD when needed. She took over as the MD of ‘Musicality’ – a ladies choir based in Richmond in March 2022. She has been involved with the County Youth Choir as the accompanist and Assistant Director since it started in 2008 and took over as the MD in 2019.
Scott Christian Senogles – Choir Director
Born in Castleford in 1982, Scott is both a Professional Church Musician and Instrumental Lead and teacher at North Yorkshire Music Service where he has taught Piano and Voice since 2003. On completing both BMus and MA in Organ performance with composition (2005) from the University of Huddersfield, he has held the post of Organist and Director of Music at Mirfield Parish Church. Prior to this Scott was Organ Scholar at the then Leeds Parish Church.
