Amit Anand is an Indian composer currently based in Scotland. His musical training started with the Tabla. His interest in western classical music and desire to learn the techniques of composition, orchestration, arranging and harmonising led him to complete his BMus in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Amit’s music has been performed by prominent ensembles in Scotland including Red Note Ensemble and Scottish Freelancers Ensemble. Since graduating he has launched Pianoshaale, an online piano academy in the regional languages of India as part of his aim to make western classical music more accessible and inclusive.

Winner of two Scottish Music Awards, Ben Lunn is associate artist for Drake Music and Drake Music Scotland, and Trainee Artistic Director of the Hebrides Ensemble.

Current projects include a large-scale work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, supported by the PRS Foundation's Composers' Fund, as well as a concert of chamber works featured in the 2022 Durham Brass Festival. In 2021 Ben helped found the Disabled Artist Network, an organisation which is bridging the gap between the professional world and disabled artists.

“Education is the vital ingredient to allow someone to enter the world of music. If we want our art form to better reflect society, we must do everything we can to make sure the fundamental nature of education is equal, open and accessible.”

Multi-international award-winning Florence Anna Maunders is a UK-based composer and performer. She began composing as a teenager, graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music and then took a long break from writing music, concentrating on performing, teaching, arranging, conducting and electronic music production.

In 2018 she returned to composition, winning a series of prizes, awards and commissions, and seeing her music performed extensively in the UK, Europe, the USA and around the world. Florence is currently working on commissions for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, The Arc Project, Third Coast Percussion and the Wigmore Hall alongside an array of other projects, and she is about to embark on a PhD in composition at Cardiff University, where she has the Postgraduate Studentship in Music.

“I’m massively grateful to ABRSM for this opportunity to develop as a composer, and to explore the vast possibilities of composing contemporary music for education.”

Hyokyung Jung is a South Korean guitarist and composer with musical loves from across the spectrum, including jazz, rock, funk and fusion. With a huge interest in jazz-rock fusion, her compositions are inspired by guitarists such as Gilad Hekselman, Adam Rogers, Mike Stern, and Kurt Rosenwinkel. At the same time, Hyokyung combines original ideas from her background, such as traditional Korean rhythms, with jazzy voicings which have inspired her arrangements and original material.

Michael Betteridge is a Manchester-based composer with an eclectic output mainly centred around voice, theatre and working with young musicians and leisure time music makers. He has worked with and created work for organisations such as BBC Philharmonic, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Cheltenham Festivals, London Symphony Orchestra, Opera North, and Psappha. He is artistic director of The Sunday Boys – an open access low voiced LGBTQ+ choir based in the heart of Manchester.

Natalie Bleicher is a pianist, composer and piano teacher living in Hertfordshire. She studied at Junior Trinity, Oxford University and King's College London, and currently studies piano with Thalia Myers. As a composer Natalie has written exam pieces for piano, electronic keyboard and harp, and her open score work, Thalassa, is published by CoMA (Contemporary Music for All). She teaches piano privately and at York House School, and is accompanist for Fortune Green Choir in West Hampstead and for Mini Mozart classes in St Albans.