Biography

Jonathan Newell
Jonathan has experienced a wide-ranging musical and teaching life both in this country and in Norway, Cairo and Vienna. An organist, choir trainer and educationalist, Jonathan has also been heavily involved in music theatre productions throughout most of his career. He was musical director for the northern youth music theatre companies Dionysis and DCYC for ten years.

Jonathan was for five years Deputy Chief Examiner in Diploma Music for the International Baccalaureate, and regularly leads teacher-training workshops for IB Diploma Music worldwide. He has also trained teachers from all subject disciplines as new workshop leaders for the IB in Australia, Switzerland and the UK. As a principal examiner, he has taken part in two curriculum reviews for Diploma Music and also for the IB's Middle Years Programme (MYP), and is a regular member of the Grade Award team

For seven years Jonathan worked at Trinity College of Music, London, one of the country’s leading music conservatoires, as programme leader for Foundation and Graduate Study Programmes, and Continuing Professional Development. He also lectured there in Historical Studies, Instrumental and Vocal Teaching Studies and Performance Skills. Jonathan is a senior examiner for Trinity Guildhall international examinations board and is on both the Music and Drama and Speech panels.

Jonathan currently lives in Oxford and his work increasingly focuses on educational consultancy in addition to his other work. He directs ArtsInsight, an educational consultancy for the performing arts in education (www.artsinsight.net) and delivers workshops for IBICUS (www.ibicus.org), and INTHINKING (www.inthinking.co.uk) which run revision courses for students and training workshops for teachers in the UK and abroad. He also delivers INSET for Trinity Guildhall and was one of the three national mentor trainers for the government sponsored KS2 CPD Programme, run jointly by Trinity Guildhall and The Open University.

Practical music making is not neglected, however, and he freelances as an organist, accompanist, conductor, voice coach, instrumental teacher and adjudicator, his most recent choir training appointment being musical director of the Downland Chorale, in Surrey, England.

Jonathan is a graduate of the University of Durham, England, where he was Organ Scholar of University College, and holds diplomas in organ playing and choir training from the Royal College of Organists, London and Trinity College, London. He also holds a Master's Degree in Choral Education from the University of Surrey and is an Honorary Fellow of the Cambridge Society of Musicians, awarded for distinguished services to Music and Music Education in the UK.

He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.