People
Elfyn Jones PhD, AFHEA
Director, Sonopera®CIC
Dr Elfyn Jones was brought up in a Welsh-speaking family in North Wales. He is a composer, opera maker, sound designer and music educator. He taught at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, led creative music projects for Welsh National Opera, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and St David's Hall Cardiff, and was a Core Group Leader for ENO Baylis for ten years before moving to South West England in 2004. Currently he directs Sonopera®CIC, teaches composition for Junior Trinity’s Distance Learning A level and tutors on the Creative Music Maker course at Trinity Laban, is a music consultant for Devon and Torbay Music Education Hubs, and has a portfolio of freelance engagements as a composer, musician and music educator.
His music has been performed in the UK, the USA, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland. Commissions include opera, musical theatre, music for dance, music for orchestra, chamber music and music for a number of plays. His symphony The Journey was premièred by De Havilland Philharmonic in 2011 and featured by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in their Composers’ Day 2013. Opera includes The Nightjar, (Tête à Tête 1999), The Dead of Night (Opera North 2003), Jacko’s Hour (Opera Engine 2009), The Trial of Jean Rhys (Opera Europa 2011 and ROH 2011-2012), and Nine Stories High (WNO 2012), and three operas for his PhD, namely Vicky and Albert (2018), Her face was of flowers (2019) and The Trilobite, Or The Fall Of Mr Williams (2020). Last year he created a musical, BOAT, for Exeter College's UAL Musical Theatre students, and has been invited back this year to create another, INFLUENCE, to be performed May 2024.
Elfyn gained a Natural Sciences degree from Cambridge University in 1989, before changing course for a career in music. He trained at Cardiff University (BMus 1st 1993), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (MMus 1995), and on attachment with London Sinfonietta (1994/5). He gained his PhD Sound design for the opera composer: concepts and methods at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2022.
Kip Pratt MA, PGCE
Kip has been working in music for over 35 years as a teacher, violinist, music leader and lecturer. He spent 10 years teaching music education at Plymouth University, from where he has a Masters Degree in education. He has worked for Teignmouth Learning Community as a music leader and as an Associate with Devon and Torbay Music Education Hub, for whom he is currently leading the Let's Play Singing Games project for young children. Kip also works with Elfyn Jones and Patrick Saturley on two ongoing music education projects, 7 Days Of Music and Sonorities.
Kip has been instrumental in organising five MIX music festivals for Devon school children and eight Children's Music Festivals in Teignmouth. In 2019 he wrote and directed the music for The Sea Cycle in partnership with Elfyn Jones, a musical extravaganza for 6 schools, based on seafaring stories of Teignmouth. He also works with Sonopera devising large scale singing projects for school federations. He teaches whole-class instrument work in schools, and offers story telling workshops with creative composition.
Kip is a ceilidh dance caller with The Blue Jewel Ceilidh Band, and a member of the Lyric Chamber Orchestra.
Patrick Saturley BA (Hons), PGCE
Patrick grew up skateboarding around Torquay before studying Music at Dartington College of Arts. His career as a musician and teacher began in Europe, teaching in Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, and Northern France. Having returned to Devon in the late 1990s, his focus since then has been Music Education at Secondary School level.
For 24 years he was Director of Music and later Head of Performing Arts at Teignmouth Community School (TCS), where he built a successful, community-led, Music and Performing Arts Department. Patrick led the team in numerous community projects, concerts, musicals, and international tours, and took responsibility for the continued progress of the GCSE, Vocational and A-Level courses. Alongside his work at TCS, from 2014 – 2023 he was Lecturer and Subject Lead for the PGCE Secondary Music at Plymouth University, training, nurturing and assessing music teachers of the future.
Currently Patrick is Music Specialist for South West Teacher Trainer (SWTT) and the External Examiner for the Secondary Music PGCE at Bath Spa University. Having stepped away from the classroom in the Summer 2022, Patrick continues to spearhead engagement with Music in the South West through his work with Sonopera and as a freelancer; most recently with the Community and Identity Project with the Ivy Academy Trust. He continues to teach and play the classical guitar, as well as arranging music for the guitar and ensemble.
Ruth Atkinson MPhil (Ed), PGCAP
Ruth is a musician and music educator based in South West England. She was a lecturer in primary education at the Plymouth Institute of Education, part of Plymouth University, from 2013 until 2023, holding the management responsibility for primary music and also for the broader curriculum as a whole, and teaching undergraduate and post-graduate student teachers, including those who take a major specialism in primary music (one quarter of their total course credits) within their BEd degree.
She is the author of Mastering Primary Music, the essential guide to teaching music for all trainee primary teachers, available from Bloomsbury. She also wrote the article Why working creatively is still important in English primary classrooms in 2022: an appreciative empirical inquiry as part of her contribution to the Sonopera®CIC project Creativity Through Music.
Prior to her career in Higher Education, Ruth was a primary-school teacher, school music leader, deputy head and headteacher. Her experience in primary schools spans over twenty years. Qualifications include BAHons(Oxon), PGCE, NPQH, MPhil(Ed) and PGCAP. An amateur musician, Ruth plays 'cello, piano, recorders, ukulele, djembe, kit drum and spoons.
Jade Gall MA, FTCL
Jade Gall is a highly celebrated UK-based saxophonist and flautist, hailed as having a “big, strong tenor sound with a beautiful sense of melody and swing…a musician to look out for in the future” by top UK trumpeter Steve Waterman. Experienced in pop, classical and jazz fields, she has performed alongside top-class musicians from around the world.
Jade is a Fellow of Trinity College London (FTCL) in saxophone performance. She is a regular feature at classical music festivals around the country. Alongside her solo work, she is involved in a saxophone duo with Ffion Dafis-Clode, performs with chamber ensemble ‘Superlocrian‘, performs in a saxophone quartet and plans for a solo classical album.
Jazz projects include performances with her Bristol-based quartet at venues across the country and at Teignmouth Jazz Festival; performing regularly with top big bands including the Swing Machine Jazz Orchestra and working with Mark Bassey and Tom Green (Dankworth Composition Prizewinner 2013) and the Sam Massey Ensemble.
Jade has a passion for sharing her musical skills and education projects are a key part of her musical life. She is an experienced woodwind tutor, teaching saxophone, flute and clarinet at a number of educational institutions, and as a jazz educator, she has worked with Issie Barratt and the National Youth Jazz Collective, and is a founder member of South Devon Youth Jazz.
Alfie Pugh BMus (1st Class Hons)
Alfie Pugh is an award-winning composer and arranger, holding a first class degree in Music from Bath Spa University. In 2011 he won the Charities Philharmonia Young Composers competition, with his piece for symphony Orchestra Vasilisa - The Beautiful, which was subsequently performed and recorded at St. John's, Smith Square.
Alfie has also enjoyed success working on the preservation of the music of Barry Gray, notably for a new soundtrack CD of the music from Thunderbirds, which reached number 1 in the Japanese classical charts.
His piece for Wind Orchestra Trans-Siberian Railway won the Symphonic Wind Orchestra of North London's Composition Competition in 2014. His symphonic composition Exeter Cityscapes, written to mark Exeter Music Group Symphony Orchestra's 50th anniversary in 2017, was received with critical acclaim at its premiere in Exeter Cathedral.
Alfie works as a freelance musician in Exeter, dividing his time between writing, teaching piano, drums and bassoon, performing and musical direction. He has published a number of works for chamber wind ensemble, available from wonderfulwinds.com