Imogen Barford MA (Cantab.), Dip.RAM, ARAM, LRAM, MSTAT, Senior Fellow HEA, PG Cert. Performing Arts Medicine (UCL)

Imogen Barford's busy free-lance career has covered an extremely wide range of activities: concerto soloist at the South Bank and Wigmore Hall, London; orchestral work with all the major London orchestras (the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, BBC Symphony, London Philharmonic, and English Chamber Orchestras) as well as opera (English and Welsh National Opera, Glyndebourne and Garsington), ballet (English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Ballet Rambert) and film work; hundreds of chamber concerts with her own group JEUX and the Endymion Ensemble; contemporary music and early music on original instruments; plus regular appearances in all the major concert halls, radio and TV broadcasts, recordings and foreign tours. In recent years she has toured in Germany, Austria, France, Luxembourg and Spain with the London Symphony Orchestra, playing under conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Bernard Haitink. Other work ranges from playing the solo harp in Handel’s Saul at Glyndebourne, and Gluck’s Orfeo at the Edinburgh Festival, to appearing at the London Jazz Festival at the Barbican, and premiering pieces with the Alvor Trio (flute-viola-harp).

Her commitment to contemporary music has led to numerous first performances, and commissioning awards, and in 2013 Imogen began commissioning a series of harp solo and chamber works from prominent British composers, so far Simon Holt, Robert Saxton, Julian Phillips, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Hannah Kendall, Zoe Martlew and Colin Matthews.

Imogen read Music at Cambridge University and studied the harp at the Royal Academy of Music with Renata Scheffel-Stein, where she won the coveted Recital Diploma. In 2005 she became Head of Harp at Guildhall School.  Imogen has given masterclasses in Poland, Paris, Belgium, Norway, The Netherlands and all over the UK.  In 1994 she was made an honorary associate of the Royal Academy of Music 'for distinguished service to the music profession'.

Imogen is much in demand as an examiner and adjudicator. She has been a jury member for International Harp Competitions in Austria, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Turkey and Wales, and has sat on panels for the BBC Young Musician of the Year and the Royal Over-Seas League Competition; examined for the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, The Hague Royal Conservatoire, Norwegian Academy, Haute Ecole de Musique Geneva, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and Birmingham Conservatoire; and adjudicated numerous Music Festivals.

Imogen is passionate about helping young musicians to stay well and to perform with comfort and ease: she is a fully qualified teacher of the Alexander Technique and holds a postgraduate certificate in Performing Arts Medicine from University College London. At GSMD she co-teaches the ‘Move Well, Play Better’ classes in Body Mapping and Alexander Technique.