|
|
|
|
Bette Gray-Fow
In her 20s and 30s Bette pursued a career as a solo and ensemble singer, performing in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and a subsequent BBC broadcast, and in variety of roles in opera, light opera and oratorio. A student of Pamela Cook, in 1976 she took part as a soloist in Bach masterclasses with Peter Pears, George Malcolm, John Carol Case and Imogen Holst at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies. Following her return to the United States in 1978, she continued her studies at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois.
As Director of Music at the King’s School, Grantham, England, Bette’s Chamber Singers performed in the Mansion House, at the Royal Festival Hall and on ClassicFM. At Northampton High School the Gospel Choir performed widely, and was the subject of a Times Educational Supplement article on innovative choral work (‘In Tune with the Real World’ May 16th 1997). She has also been chorus-master for concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Nottingham Symphony Orchestra, and for the Lirica Opera Company. Bette’s students have won places in youth orchestras, in the National Youth Choir, Oxbridge choral scholarships, and places at music conservatoire and university, as well as winning the “Young Singer of the Year” competition in Northamptonshire, England.
An accomplished instrumentalist and instrumental teacher, she has founded and fostered a wide range of ensembles in schools, in musical styles ranging from Early Music to Jazz, developing thriving instrumental programmes based on group teaching methods, and delivering workshops for instrumental teachers on a range of topics (including breath management and improvisation).
Bette continues to be active as an adjudicator and as a presenter of choral workshops, including work for the Association of British Choral Directors, Trinity College of Music and the Berkshire Young Musicians Trust. Her vocal warm-ups and exercises, together with a number of her choral arrangements, have just been published under the title Chorus for Everyone: an approach to choral singing (Lindsay Music, 2004).
Bette also has had a long-standing interest in Music Technology and in 1996 she served as one of two consultants specialising in Music Technology for the SCAA (now QCA) Working Party for the Evaluation of A-level Music Syllabuses. In June 2002, she delivered the keynote address at the joint National Association of Music Educators/BECTa conference in London, on the topic, ‘ICT in the curriculum: where do we go from here?’, and in 2001 was a major speaker at a PALATINE Conference on issues relating to transition from A-level to university music courses, particularly in terms of approaches to composition teaching.
Her most recent full-time post was as Creative Arts Team Leader & Lecturer in Education in the Open University’s Learning Schools Programme), and was involved in the preparation and development of both classroom and professional development materials for music teachers nationwide. More recently she was responsible for preparing the music education units for the BBC/Open University’s new professional development programme, Teachandlearn.net, and has just led a team of consultants and research assistants in a major evaluation project for Youth Music, assessing Phase One of their Plug into Music initiative, nationally, and authoring a major report on the topic of out-of-school provision for Music Technology.
In the autumn of 2001 Bette was involved in the training of Gifted & Talented Coordinators for Excellence in Cities, completing a book Discovering & Developing Talent in Schools: an inclusive approach - published in November by NACE/Fultons).She was a member of the QCA Working Party on website guidance for teachers of gifted & talented 14-19-year-olds, advising both on the content and format of this area of the National Curriculum website.
In the summer of 1996 Bette was resident at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and in February of 1995 was ‘long-listed’ for the Times Educational Supplement Fellowship in Educational Policy at Cambridge
|
|
Send mail to
artsinsight.webmaster@greatorex.org with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
