IAN RITCHIE - Chairman, editorial group and trustee, Choirbook Trust

Ian Ritchie is Director of the City of London Festival.  His musical education took place at the Royal College of Music (studying singing and winning the Mario Grisi Prize), Trinity College, Cambridge (as a choral scholar and also a Law student), the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (post-graduate singing studies) and the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies.  He joined Universal Edition (music publishers) as promotion manager in 1976.  Thereafter he has led numerous arts organisations, including City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Opera North and St Magnus Festival, Orkney.  He was first appointed Artistic Director of the City of London Festival in 1983 and returned as its Director in 2005.

Ian is also Artistic Director of the inaugural Setũbal Music Festival in Portugal (May 2011) and an Artistic Assessor for Arts Council England.  He has advised and devised a large number of arts organisations and projects, was chairman of the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) and the Society for the Promotion of New Music, served as adviser and committee member for the British Council and the English and Scottish Arts Councils, and is a director/trustee of several arts charities, including Musicians without Borders (NL), Opera Circus, Tenebrae (choir) and The Musical Brain, in addition to the Choirbook Trust.