Colchester Rotary Festival of Music 2027

The Adjudicator for the 2027 Festival wil be Dr Oliver Gledhill PhD MA(Mtpp) PGCA ARCM FISM. 

Oliver Gledhill, cellist, was a Scholar at the Guildhall School of Music and won numerous awards including the ISTEL/Redditch Music Society Competition. He studied with many eminent cellists including William Pleeth, Edmund Kurtz and André Navarra. He has given acclaimed recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, including three in the Kirckman Concert Society Series. Festival appearances have included solo performances in England, France, Italy, Mallorca and the Czech Republic.

Oliver has recorded nine CDs, including the complete works for cello by Léon Boëllmann, which was awarded five stars for performance by BBC Music Magazine, and has been played on the radio in Australia, Belgium and the USA, and W.H. Squire – Miniatures for Cello and Piano for the British Music Society/Naxos, which was featured as John Brunning’s Drive ‘Discovery’ of the week on Classic FM, and followed a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music/University of London on W.H. Squire, his cello miniatures and the portamento.

Dr Gledhill teaches the cello at Junior Guildhall, in London, and is a member of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Research Ethics Committee. He also teaches for the Music Specialist School at City of London Academy Highbury Grove. He has edited music for Peters Edition and Durand. His published writings include articles and reviews for the Strad magazine and the British Journal of Music Education.

Oliver Gledhill is an Examiner for Trinity College London, and as their cello syllabus consultant composed fifteen graded studies for the current TCL Cello Scales book. As an Adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals, he has adjudicated at over one hundred festivals, including the Finals of Music for Youth on five occasions. His pupil successes include Most Promising String Player awards at the Bedfordshire, Chelmsford, Hatfield, Southend and Watford Festivals, the winner of Junior Guildhall’s Lutine Prize 2020 and the only cello finalist in the Strings Category of BBC Young Musician 2020.