Professor Helena Gaunt is Principal at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
Helena is a National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education
Academy. Research interests include one-to-one instrumental/vocal tuition in
music, ensemble practices and collaborative learning in the performing arts, and
creative entrepreneurship. Helena directs the international Refl ective Conservatoire
Conference hosted triennially at the Guildhall, and is the Chair of the Innovative
Conservatoire (ICON), an international partnership dedicated to curriculum and
leadership development in specialist music education. She is also co-editor of
Music Performance Research and a member of the Editorial Board of the British
Journal of Music Education. Alongside research, she is an oboist, was a member
of the Britten Sinfonia for many years, and is a Trustee of the National Youth
Orchestra of Great Britain.
Heidi Westerlund is Professor at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts
Helsinki, Finland, where she is responsible for the music education doctoral studies.
Her research interests include music teacher education, collaborative learning,
cultural diversity and democracy in music education, and philosophy of music
education. She is the Editor-in-chief of the Finnish Journal of Music Education and
has served in the editorial and reviewer boards in numerous international journals.
She is the co-editor of Collaborative Learning in Higher Music Education (Ashgate,
2013), Music, Education, and Religion: Intersections and Entanglements (Indiana
University Press, 2019), and Visions for Intercultural Music Teacher Education
(Springer, 2019). She is currently leading two research projects funded by the
Academy of Finland that have engaged altogether over 100 researchers: ArtsEqual -
The Arts as Public Service: Strategic Steps towards Equality (2015-2021) and Global
Visions through Mobilizing Networks: Co-developing Intercultural Music Teacher
Education in Finland, Israel and Nepal (2015-2020).
