Seminar

Please note that this seminar will take place in Pinner Parish Church Hall. 

We are delighted to welcome Ian Skelly (BBC Radio 3 Presenter) to facilitate our Seminar this year. These informal conversations help us to learn more about the musicians and music featured in PMF2025, and to hear their wider insights in the discussion.

The panel comprises:

Emma Abbate, who will talk about the Piano Duo and their concert on Wednesday lunchtime, entitled Let’s Dance!

Heidi Fardell, of Sounds Historical (recorders, baroque flute), who will give us a glimpse of their Thursday lunchtime Whistle-stop tour from Hildegard to Haydn.

Paul Jeanes, who features on Tuesday playing the Organ (starting its 50th year), and conducts our Choral and Orchestral Concert on Saturday.

Julian Perkins, in his role as Baroque specialist, to introduce the Bach Cello Suites that Raphael Wallfisch will play on Friday (Julian is also the other half of our Piano Duo!).

Ian Skelly is a well-known voice on BBC Radio 3, the BBC’s classical music station, presenting the station’s daily mid-morning show, Essential Classics. In the 25 years he has been with Radio 3 he has presented all the other daytime programmes from the Breakfast Show and the Afternoon music strand to the evening drivetime show, In Tune. He is also part of the small team of presenters who host Radio 3’s live concerts from all the main venues in the UK, working with the world’s top orchestras and soloists, and is one of Radio 3’s presenters of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in the Summer.

He is an award-winning travel writer, arts journalist, an internationally published writer and, for two decades, worked very closely with King Charles when he was Prince of Wales helping to articulate the detail of the King’s ideas, crafting most of his major speeches. Ian was co-author of the King’s book Harmony, which sets out his integrated vision and which led to a documentary made in Hollywood for NBC Television, which was also shown in cinemas in the UK and across the USA.

Ian has written and produced many documentaries on the arts and music for Radio’s 3, 4 and the BBC World Service and, as a film-maker, has made documentary films in the UK, Canada and the Middle East. He began his career in the age of steam radio as a BBC reporter and news presenter.