The 2025 Oundle Festival of Music & Drama will continue its proud heritage of offering competitive performance opportunities to all, with this year being our 106th Festival.
The Festival is open to all amateurs and welcomes performers of all ages in music, speech and drama. Performers are invited to compete in a variety of classes.
Adjudicators
TIMOTHY BARRATT studied on a Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, winning many major awards, and completed his studies with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris and Geoffrey Parsons. He has enjoyed a career as soloist, accompanist and chamber music player throughout the UK and abroad for over thirty years and, in recognition of his work, was elected ARAM, an award to former students for distinguished service to the profession.
Teaching forms a major part of his musical life and he enjoys working with pupils of all ages and levels from beginner to post-graduate. He was Head of Keyboard at Dulwich College for many years whilst also teaching at the RAM and TCM and now pursues a busy freelance practice.
Formerly a member of the examining, training and review panel for the ABRSM, he now acts as a Piano Syllabus Consultant. He regularly directs Masterclasses and Residential Courses for performers and teachers and is in demand as a Competition and Festival adjudicator.
Tenor soloist, vocal coach, pianist, organist and choral director, Adrian Goss studied at the Royal Academy of Music & the Guildhall.
After an initial career as accompanist and clarinettist, he quickly established himself as a Tenor, enjoying a solo career in concert and recital. His work as a singer has included recordings and broadcasts and in 1999 he was awarded the ARAM, an honour granted to past students of the Academy who have achieved distinction in their profession. A former Lay-clerk at Ely Cathedral, deputy at St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and HM Chapel Royal, a professional member of the City Glee Club, Director of the Chamber Choir Quorum, and work as a Director of Music at a major church has led on to a parallel career in education. A Director of Music at two independent senior schools, Director of the Kent Music Academy for the gifted, Head of Kent’s County Groups, examiner for grades and diplomas for fifteen years, vocal teacher from beginners to diploma level, he currently teaches at Brighton College, Cranleigh and also privately. In addition to his successful solo singing career, Adrian directs workshops and master classes for singers and speakers at summer schools. He is a member of both the Association of Teachers of Singing (AOTOS) the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) and the Royal Society of Musicians.
He has 35 years’ experience as an Adjudicator for International, National and Local festivals, including the National Festival of Music for Youth. An Adjudicator member of The British and International Federation of Festivals, Adrian has been an elected member of the Adjudicators Council since 2010, and has been Chair since 2014. He is also a Federation adjudicator Mentor, and on the Assessment Panel assessing potential new adjudicators.
Rebecca Vines
Rebecca read journalism at Cardiff University, during which time she wrote a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper. She continues to work for a range of publications as a features writer, ghost writer, and theatre critic.
Rebecca then studied as an actor at the London Centre for Theatre Studies; and her theatre credits include off-West End, Fringe, tour, educational theate and voiceover. Favourite roles include Maggie (Dancing at Lughnasa); Elizabeth (The Crucible); Beverley (Abigail’s Party); Madame Arcati (Blithe Spirit); Martha (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
Rebecca trained as a specialist drama teacher at The Guildhall. She has taught in a range of primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions for the last twenty years; and is the Principal of her own drama school, which operates internationally. Rebecca’s pupils have been awarded places at major conservatoires and bodies such as RADA, LAMDA, Central, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall, Bristol Old Vic, Mountview, East 15, Guildford, AADA, Royal Birmingham, the Oxford School of Drama, National Youth Theatre, and the National Youth Music Theatre. Their work can be seen on the BBC, ITV, Sky, C4, E4, Netflix, Working Title, National Theatre, RSC, and with countless touring theatre companies in the UK and abroad.
Rebecca sits on the Adjudicator’s Council for the British and International Federation of Festivals; on the Awards Panel for the UKPA; and is a LAMDA, GCSE and A level examiner.
In 2014, Rebecca was awarded the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts in recognition of her work in the youth theatre sector. Rebecca is passionate about helping performers take their first professional steps, and helps emerging talents to form and manage their own theatre companies. As such, Close Up Theatre, No Prophet Theatre, and Eleventh Hour Theatre have all played to critical and commercial acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival: kickstarting careers and forging critical industry networking opportunities.
Rebecca’s productions have played to critical acclaim and commercial success at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2023. In addition to directing and producing over thirty thirty sell-out shows at the Fringe; Rebecca has adapted classics such as 1984, Jane Eyre, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice for the stage; and has written the original works More Myself Than I Am, Torn, Coward Conscience, and OTMA.
Rebecca is currently working on a PhD based around Shakespeare’s history plays; and she is passionate about inclusivity and diversity in the Arts, spending her free time ‘making things happen’ for people who would otherwise have no agency within the creative sector.
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