Cathy Graham - Director Music

After gaining a Bachelor of Music at Birmingham University, Cathy Graham spent two years at the Royal Northern College of Music studying piano accompaniment. Fourteen years as a professional musician in Stockholm included work as a teacher, vocal coach and repetiteur with opera and theatre companies. Returning to the UK in 1992 Cathy quickly established herself on the London music scene, working for ENO Contemporary Music Studio and Almeida Opera, and as an Artists' Manager. In 1994 she became Executive Director of the spnm, guiding organisational change, and her tenure culminated in the spnm receiving the Prudential Award for the Arts. From 1997 – 2006 she was Managing Director of the London Sinfonietta, during which time the ensemble toured extensively nationally and internationally, and saw its repertoire, profile and audience broaden and increase. She also initiated and oversaw the ensemble's own record label, and was engaged on leading the move to a new multi-purpose venue at Kings Cross which now acts as a permanent home alongside the ensemble's South Bank Centre artistic residency. Since November 2006 she has been Director of Music at the British Council in London working across all genres of music on projects which create trust and understanding between the UK and the rest of the world. She is a board member of NMC, a recording label for British contemporary music, and of ISPA (International Society for Performing Arts), a National Music Advisor to the Arts Council of Wales and an Artistic Assessor for the Arts Council of England. Interests outside of music include theatre, architecture and walking.

Phil Catchpole - Music Advisor

Responsible for Selector Radio – global responsibility, UK responsibility England

Phil has been involved in the music industry for 12 years. Whilst completing his degree in Commercial Music at Westminster University Phil worked in the office of the Mean Fiddler Organization by day and by night unloaded the vans of the bands that played at their network of venues across the capital. Using this grass roots experience Phil ran and promoted a music venue in the heart of London’s West End for three and half years putting on the first shows of many of today’s household names (Keane, Kaiser Chiefs etc). This connected Phil into the A&R fraternity who frequented his club looking for the next big things. Subsequently Phil was offered a job at Chrysalis Music as A&R manager, a post he held for five years before moving to Relentless Records (EMI) where he worked as A&R manager across their recording, publishing and artist management business.

Joel Mills - Music Advisor

Responsible for India and Sri Lanka, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, UK responsibility Wales

Joel Mills has worked in the music sector for over 15 years. She started out working in production for world music dance club Whirl -Y-Gig, then various festivals such as The Big Chill, Stoke Newington Festival, before becoming Programming and Venue Manager at The Spitz, a cutting-edge London music venue. Following a stint there, she worked freelance across both the commercial and arts music sector for several years, combining a mixture of event, project & artist management and consultancy. Promoter clients included SJM Concerts, Mean Fiddler, Eat Your Own Ears and Festival Republic, working on a diverse range of shows from mainstream pop to jazz and folk, including Bat for Lashes, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Foo Fighters and Arctic Monkeys. She co-produced an Arts Council funded tour for folk artist Martha Tilston, and worked on artist liaison for Serious International Music Producers and WOMAD. During this time she returned to education to add an MA in Arts Management to her Cultural Studies degree. As an Artist Manager, Joel worked with Ninja Tune signed band Pest, anti-folk artist Lupen Crook and talented singer songwriter Alice McLaughlin, signed to Rob Da Bank’s Sunday Best Recordings, before negotiating a major label deal with Parlophone. Since joining British Council in 2009, she has enjoyed working on a number of projects including Resound, the 75th Anniversary Concert, and is enjoying developing projects where her background in both the commercial and arts sector comes together.

Paul Parkinson - Music Advisor

Responsible for West Europe and North America, Russia and North Europe, Latin America and Caribbean, UK responsibility Scotland

Paul’s background is in the classical contemporary music field. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he distinguished himself by being awarded all of the composition prizes and the Leverhulme Scholarship for advanced study. In 1978 he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship for Composers. This, combined with awards from The Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Hinrichsen Foundation, enabled him to study first in Paris with the legendary Nadia Boulanger then with the distinguished British composer Peter Racine Fricker at the University of California, Santa Barbara. On returning to the UK in 1979, Paul was appointed a Professor of Music Techniques at the Royal Academy of Music. Between the years 1979-89 he divided his time between teaching at the RAM and composing. In 1984 he was appointed Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts Association's first PRS Composer in the Community where he worked as a creative learning animateur, leading on creative music projects, directing workshops, teaching and composing. Many works during this period were performed at various venues and festivals and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He gained a Masters degree from the University of Nottingham in 1990. Paul joined the British Council in 1990 where, for four years, he managed British Education missions to the Far East and spent a period in Arts Group’s Literature Department. He joined Music Department in 1994 and over the past 15 years he has been involved with all parts of the music sector (classical contemporary, sound-art, jazz, traditional, independent popular, experimental) and has worked across many regions of the world (Western Europe, Far East, South Asia, The Americas). Interests include modern spiritual philosophy, integral and transpersonal psychology, astrology, travel and the novels of Honoré de Balzac.

Leah Zakss - Music Advisor

Responsible for Middle East, Near East North Africa, South East Europe, China, UK responsibility Northern Ireland

Leah studied piano and clarinet from an early age, winning a county music scholarship whilst at school, and later completing a combined degree in Music and Public Art at Roehampton. During university, she collected 26 hours of ethnomusicological field recordings for the British Library’s International Sound Archive whilst travelling on an art scholarship. Between studies, she organised fundraising gigs for Greenpeace, took on workshop management and artist liaison roles at WOMAD festivals and conducted audience research for Arts Worldwide. Whilst still completing her degree, she joined SASA Music agency, developing a roster of international artists as a show booker, tour producer and occasional concert promoter. From ‘97 to 2001 she worked alongside record labels, distributors and artist managers on international tours for Buena Vista Social Club as well as emerging and established bands and DJs from the UK, Latin America, Africa and India. Independently, she worked behind the scenes and managed crew teams at a number of UK music festivals – most frequently The Big Chill. She has also written for The Rough Guide to World Music and Music Teacher magazine, and provided specialist advice to EMI’s Hemisphere label. Since 2001, Leah has developed the British Council’s music programme across the Middle East, North Africa, South and East Asia and China. During this time she has worked across all musical genres including rock, hip-hop, folk, sound art, jazz and electronica. She has undertaken secondments in Bangkok and Beijing, and spent 11 months as Acting Head of Music in 2006. She was instrumental in setting up major projects such as NENA’s Music Matbakh with Justin Adams, Sound And The City in China featuring Brian Eno, and India Soundpad with John Leckie. Leah is also an independent, music specialist Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England.

Leah is on maternity leave until September 2012

Lucy Jamieson - Music Advisor

Responsible for Middle East, Near East North Africa, South East Europe, China, UK responsibility Northern Ireland

Lucy’s experience working in live music began with independent promoter The Local, where she continues to work mainly with emerging artists including She Keeps Bees, David Thomas Broughton, Sarabeth Tucek and Oh Ruin. With The Local, Lucy has presented artists at venues all around London and at the End of the Road festival in Dorset, the Electric Elephant Festival in Croatia, and SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Lucy spent four years working for the Arts Council, during which time she worked on music project Take it Away, which aimed to encourage more people to learn a music instrument, as well as a brief stint with the Contemporary Music Network.

In 2009 Lucy was given the opportunity to work for a year as Associate Contemporary Music Programmer with the Barbican, programming shows with a range of artists from Bomba Estereo and Arrested Development, to Kristin Hersh and Giant Sand, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, to Tokyo chutei iki and The Irrepressibles. During this time she worked on performances as part of the London Jazz Festival, the Barbican’s Blaze festival and Dance Nations Dalston, and the Shoreditch Festival.

A stint in Australia working with the Sydney Festival was followed most recently with a position at the National Portrait Gallery, programming and running live music every Friday evening, taking in music across genres and using different spaces in the building. Lucy also plays the drums.

Emily Wilcox - Project Assistant

Emily joined the music team in London as projects assistant in 2010 and is the first point of contact for our four specialist advisors and Director Music.

She supports the team with projects including Selector radio and monthly Selector live events, as well as UK showcases including the London Jazz Festival, //hcmf and The Great Escape. Working with our network of Arts managers overseas she has supported a range of music events including Sam Lee and Friends in Sudan, Trio VD in Ukraine, Tim Exile in Vietnam, Akala in Indonesia and Philippines, as well as events with audio visual artists The Light Surgeons in Malaysia and India.

She is an Honours Graduate in Fine and Applied Arts, and has worked for the British Council since 2006, delivering a range of international arts and education projects as well as study visits. Her career includes working in the arts in Chicago and New York City as well as with Oh Yeah Music Centre and the Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival Belfast. In 2009 she worked as a volunteer at the Manchester International Festival which firmly sealed her passion for music event management and lead on to her joining our London team.