Guest Faculty
Guest Brass Band Conductor: Helen Harrelson
Helen Harrelson began her playing career on euphonium playing with the Rotherham Schools Band and the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain. She later changed to baritone and was accepted at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where she gained her BMus (Hons). During her studies at the RNCM, Helen worked and performed with world class musicians such as Bob Childs, James Watson, Sandy Smith, Steven Mead, James Gourley, and Bramwell Tovey. During her time in the U.K., she was a member of some of the worlds’ finest brass bands. Helen had the honor of being one of the first female members in the Black Dyke Band, with whom she toured and recorded many CDs, radio broadcasts and television appearances.
Helen taught brass and woodwind in the Manchester area and regularly coached brass bands throughout Europe as part of the Foden’s Brass Band Coaching Team. In 2005 she completed her Post Graduate Certificate of Education and accepted the position as Head of Wider Opportunities Music Curriculum at Bolton Music Service.
Summer 2007 saw Helen take a voluntary sabbatical to Kansas City, as part of a cross-cultural study of music education. During this time she began playing Solo Baritone with the Fountain City Brass Band with whom she later founded the internationally recognized Fountain City Youth Brass Academy.
In 2015, Helen completed her Masters of Arts degree at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance and became a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society.
As a leading advocate for brass pedagogy and performance, she has presented and performed at events including the Midwest Clinic, International Woman’s Brass Conference, International Tuba & Euphonium Conference, and International Trumpet Guild. Helen has served on the faculties of the Northern Ireland Summer School, North American Brass Band Summer School, MidAmerica Nazarene University, Missouri Western State University, and as a Student Teacher Mentor for the Royal Northern College of Music. She has been recognized for outstanding contribution to music education from the Kansas Bandmasters Association, and was awarded the ECKMEA High School Band Director of the Year in 2021.
As part of Helen’s vision for the development of brass bands in America, she co-founded, with her husband Lee, the National Youth Brass Band of America in 2019, and will complete her Doctoral studies this year, specializing in the American brass band in the twenty-first century.
Helen is a Besson/Buffet Crampon performing artist, consultant, and clinician.
Website: https://helenharrelson.com/
Guest Soloist:
Isobel Daws
(she/her)
Isobel began to play the cornet at the age of three under the joint direction of her father, David Daws, and the late Maisie Ringham Wiggins MBE. She moved onto the trombone in September 2008 and within six months gained a scholarship to study trombone and piano at The Purcell School of Music. After eight years at the Purcell, she moved to Chetham’s School to study A Levels.
In 2014 Isobel was one of the five finalists in the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year Brass Category, and in 2018 she was once again in the Brass Category Final where she went on to be crowned the winner. In 2017, Isobel was the winner of the BBC Young Brass Award playing live on Radio 2. Isobel is alumni of the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama, The National Children’s and Youth Brass Bands of Great Britain, and The National Children’s and Youth Orchestras of Great Britain.
Isobel graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2022 where she completed her four-year undergraduate course studying with Matt Gee, Peter Moore and Ian Bousfield. Isobel won the Karajan Academy position at the Berlin Philharmonic in January 2022, where she studied with Thomas Leyendecker
Isobel has performed with orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Welsh National Opera and brass ensemble, Septura. Isobel is a founding member of trombone quartet, Bone-afide, who have recorded a Christmas album, Christmas with Bone-afide and more recently a folk album with World of Sound.
In July 2023, Isobel won the Principal Trombone position in the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra where she is now a permanent member.
Isobel is a Getzen Artist, and plays on a 4147IB Getzen Trombone. She is sponsored by Greg Black Mouthpieces.
Guest Percussion Directors:
Fabrice Marandola
Fabrice Marandola is an Associate Professor of Percussion and Contemporary Music at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University (Montreal). Previously, he was a professor of percussion at the conservatories of Angers and Grenoble in France, a pedagogy instructor at the Conservatory of Paris, and an invited professor at the Crane School of Music (SUNY-Potsdam, NY). A founding member of Canadian percussion ensemble Sixtrum, he has an active career on the New Music scene, commissioning, performing and recording new works for solo and chamber ensembles. His artistic activities have received numerous distinctions and awards from Conseil Québécois pour la Musique, Académie Charles-Cros and Montreal English Theatre Awards. Notably, he
was the co-designer and musical director of Rythmopolis in 2018, a large-scale
immersive show produced by Sixtrum, which received the Prix Opus award for Event of the Year.
Dividing his time between teaching, performing and research, Fabrice Marandola was appointed Deputy Director – Artistic Research at CIRMMT (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology) from 2009 to 2014, and Director from 2020 to 2024. He holds a First Prize in percussion from the CNSMD in Paris (1997), a PhD in Ethnomusicology from Paris IV-Sorbonne (2003), and he has conducted in-depth field research in Cameroon with the Langues-Musiques-Sociétés Laboratory (CNRS, France).
As Senior Research Chair at Sorbonne-Universités (2015-16), Marandola led a
multidisciplinary research project on Musical Gesture (Geste-Acoustique-Musique). Author of over 30 scientific papers, his current research focuses on the study of the conception, production and perception of instrumental gestures in percussion performance, using 3D Motion Capture and wearable eye-tracking systems.
Kristie Ibrahim
Percussionist Kristie Ibrahim has a Master’s degree in Chamber Music from McGill University and has performed internationally with chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras in Canada, USA, France, Mexico, and New Zealand. She has also collaborated extensively as a performer and sound designer with local and international choral directors, choreographers, and theatre directors. A co-founder of Montreal percussion ensemble Sixtrum, and percussion duo Akrostick with Fabrice Marandola, Kristie is dedicated to creating new works and new performance experiences for percussion. Devoted to arts education for all ages, Kristie is Assistant Professor of Percussion and Co-Director of the McGill Percussion Ensemble at The Schulich School of Music of McGill University, a tutor of percussion at FACE School in Montreal, and is a vice-president of the Quebec Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society.