Edward Blakeman

Edward Blakeman is Head of Music at BBC Radio 3, responsible for commissioning and overseeing a wide range of classical, jazz and world music broadcasts and associated programmes.  

He previously worked on the artistic direction and broadcasting of the BBC Proms and produced music features, documentaries and live relays and recordings of orchestral concerts and operas for Radio 3.  Before joining the BBC, he was a freelance flute player, lecturer and broadcaster.  He is the editor of various music editions and author of several books, including The Faber Pocket Guide to Handel, reflecting his keen interest in Early Music, and is currently editing The Cambridge Companion to the Flute.  He is a council member of the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Albert Edelman

Albert Edelman (NL/BE) is responsible for the early music programme at Concertgebouw Brugge, Belgium. He also currently chairs REMA, the European Early Music Network, which organised the first Early Music Summit in November 2020. Building on his earlier experience at the Utrecht Early Music Festival he is working on the future of the Historically Informed Performance Practice and classical music in general.

Albert studied French, linguistics and communication at Utrecht University and has worked as a translator and a classical singer, including with Cappella Amsterdam, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, and Le Poème Harmonique.

Philip Hobbs

Philip Hobbs is Chief Producer for Linn Records Ltd. He has worked as a recording engineer and producer for more than 30 years. He has  recorded  many of the world’s leading artists and ensembles, from Jon Lord and Sir Paul McCartney to Richard Rodney Bennet and Kenny Barron, but a  great deal of his work has been in the area of historically informed performance, and he has enjoyed long collaborations with many renowned ensembles including The Dunedin Consort, The Tallis Scholars and Phantasm.

His recent projects include Handel’s La Resurrezione with The English Concert under Harry Bicket,  Bach  Cantatas BWV 32,82 & 106 with John Butt and the Dunedin Consort and Das Wohltemperierte Klavier book II with Trevor Pinnock.

In 2020 he was appointed Visiting Professor of Recording at the Royal Academy of Music.

Catherine Mackintosh

Violinist Catherine Mackintosh has been one of the most important artists during the era of early music revival.

After a conventional training at the Royal College of Music, she took up the viol and baroque violin and became one of the first of her generation to specialise in early string-playing techniques. A founder member and leader of the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Purcell Quartet, Catherine pioneered many ground-breaking musical projects played for the first time on original instruments and made extensive significant recordings of baroque and classical music. An influential teacher, Catherine has passed on her enthusiasm for early style in performance to countless young musicians all over the world.

Barbara Maria Willi

Barbara Maria Willi is a renowned Czech-German player of historical keyboard instruments and a key figure of the Early Music movement in the Czech Republic.

Having established and led the first Department of Early Music at a Czech University of Music, she is now Dean of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno. As guest professor at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague she co-initiated the Master’s study programme ‘European Master of Early Music’, a collaboration between JAMU and The Hague. She is also Director of Studies of the EEEmerging+ (Emerging European Ensembles) scheme. As a soloist and chamber music partner, she has performed widely and has received several international awards for her recordings.