A Panel Discussion - Music: What is the future?

GEORGINA BORN

Georgina Born is Professor of Anthropology and Music at University College London. From 2010-21 she was Professor of Music and Anthropology in the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, and from 2006-10 Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Music at the University of Cambridge. Earlier she had a professional life as a musician in experimental rock, jazz and improvised music. She has held visiting professorships as follows: Bloch Professor, UC Berkeley Department of Music (2014); Schulich Distinguished Professor in Music, McGill University (2015); Visiting Professor in the Schools of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at UC Irvine (2019-20, 2023-24); Professor II, University of Oslo, Department of Musicology (2014-19); Visiting Professor, Aarhus University (2017); Senior Research Fellow, Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (2018-19); and Global Scholar, Department of Music, Princeton University (2020-22).

Her awards are the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association (2007), a Fellowship of the British Academy (2014), an OBE ‘for services to anthropology, musicology and higher education’ (2016), and the Guido Adler Prize of the International Musicological Society (2024).

PAUL BOUCHER

After a formative collaboration with Benjamin Britten and the English Opera Group as a boy soprano, Paul Boucher studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and pursued a career as a violinist travelling across the globe with many of today’s leading groups. He later founded an arts festival in the Ardèche region of France and established a successful and long-running music education programme for state primary schools in inner London. For the last 15 years has been creative director of the historic Montagu Music Collection at Boughton House, where he has curated annual performances and exhibitions on different themes. In 2019 he founded the “Music and Word” series at Charleston Farmhouse with Melvyn Tan.

RICHARD MORRISON

Richard Morrison is the chief culture writer and chief classical music critic of The Times. In addition to his reviews and features, he writes an influential weekly column for the paper on all aspects of cultural life, from architecture and the visual arts to opera, TV and theatre. He first wrote for The Times in 1984 as a music critic, and served as the paper’s arts editor from 1990 to 2000.

Since 1992 he has also been a columnist for the BBC Music Magazine, where he writes a monthly overview of the classical music scene. Earlier in his career he worked as assistant editor on the scholarly periodical Early Music, and as a critic on the BBC’s weekly magazine The Listener. He has also written for Radio Times and Country Life, and been a contributor to many programmes on BBC Radio 3, where he recently presented a six-part series on the state of British music. In 2004 he was commissioned by Faber & Faber to write Orchestra, the centenary history of the London Symphony Orchestra – a book that won considerable acclaim for its frank and entertaining account of British orchestral life in the 20th century.

Richard Morrison was born in London in 1954, and educated at University College School and Magdalene College Cambridge, where he read for a degree in music. As a child he played trombone in his father’s brass band and various youth orchestras, and also studied the piano and organ. He has been director of music at St Mary’s Church, Hendon, for more than 40 years. Many of his choral scholars in the choir there have gone on to successful careers in music.

He now lives in north London and has four children ranging in age from 40 to 7. A lifelong devotion to Arsenal football club provides him with mingled pleasure and distress.

ROSIE ANN PAGE

Rosie graduated from The Institute of Contemporary Theatre, Brighton in 2021, with a BA Hons in Performing Arts. Since then, she has performed at various events & occasions across the UK. Rosie sings Theatre & Classical music and is currently developing her training with Will Hancox. Alongside performing, she also teaches Musical Theatre, singing & yoga locally. INSTAGRAM: @rosieannsinger WEB: rosieannpage.com

WILLIAM HANCOX

After a degree at Cambridge, William studied with Joseph Weingarten, a student of Dohnanyi, Bartok and Kodaly. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the UK and internationally, broadcast for Classic FM and the BBC and made a number of recordings. He was a staff pianist at the Guildhall School, Trinity College of Music and the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh.   

William has performed throughout Europe and made several trips to China, giving masterclasses and concerts in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. He has also worked extensively as a vocal coach, with many students now pursuing successful singing careers. 

William lives in East Sussex and is deeply involved in music making in his own community. He accompanies for Hailsham Choral Society and Laughton Village Choir and launched Music Box Wealden in 2023, which promotes concerts featuring local artists in the Wealden area.

Our four local singers performing a selection of solos, duets and ensembles are:

Noa Lachman - Soprano

Rebecca Hughes - Mezzo

Ben Hancox-Lachman - Tenor

Jozik Kotz - Bass

Noa Lachman

Rebecca Hughes

Ben Hancox-Lachman

Jozik Kotz