NEW DIRECTOR FOR OLDHAM COUNCIL MUSIC SERVICE APPOINTED
Gerard Booth has been appointed to the post of Director of Music for the Oldham Council Music Service following the retirement of Dr. Eileen Bentley earlier this year.
Gerard joined the Oldham Music Service as a brass instructor in 1993. He then qualified as a teacher in 1995 and became coordinator for Orchestral Brass in 1999. Since 2001 he has been Head of the Orchestral Wind Department and has led many trips and projects, most notably a tour of New York by over 90 Music Centre students in 2008. He is also well known to the wider public as the conductor of the Oldham Youth Orchestra.
For well over forty years the Oldham Music Service and Music Centre has provided the opportunity for thousands of Oldham children to receive instrumental and vocal tuition in schools and to meet together, outside school time, to play and sing in various ensembles. In his new position Gerard’s vision is to make the Music Service an even better provider of top quality musical education to all of Oldham’s young people and provide an ever wider range of opportunities and experiences to all communities whilst not losing sight of the standards of excellence that have made Oldham’s Music Service nationally synonymous with top quality music making. There are also plans in the pipeline to provide extended opportunities in the future to adults and pre-school children and listen ever more closely and respond to what the people of Oldham actually want from their Music Service.
In Gerard’s own words, “Eileen Bentley has been a great leader for the Music Service throughout my entire teaching career and I feel privileged to have been appointed as her successor. I fully intend to continue the fine traditions that she maintained throughout her career whilst extending the scope and range of all that the Music Service does to contribute to the educational and cultural life of Oldham”.
Gerard, born and bred in Blackburn and a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music, still enjoys performing on the tuba for a number of orchestras and bands in his spare time, having played in the past with ensembles such as the Hallé and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras and Grimethorpe, Leyland, Brighouse and Rastrick and Foden’s brass bands amongst others. His other hobbies include photography, cycling and fell walking. He is married to Tracey Hartnell-Booth, an oboist who also teaches at the Oldham Music Centre. To complete the music family, his three children, Aaron (clarinet), Benjamin (French Horn) & Anastasia (violin) all play in various groups at the Music Centre.
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