Carlos Lellis is the Programme Director for our Advanced Diploma in Music Production & Sound Engineering in London. He oversees the running and delivery of the course as well as teaching across areas of the curriculum. Carlos was part of the small team establishing Abbey Road Institute, working closely with the Abbey Road Studios to design and create the course curriculum. He is highly experienced and brings a wealth of industry and education experience to the Institute. He has worked as an engineer, academic, and published author. He holds an MA in Creative Media and a diploma Summa Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music.

Alongside working in education, Carlos Lellis is an active engineer and music producer whose credits include artists such as The Navarra String Quartet, the BBC Elstree Concert Band, and Grammy Award winners Sir John Tavener and Thomas Dybdahl, amongst many others. Before joining Abbey Road Institute, Carlos taught audio for many years. Some of his past students include recipients of Oscar, Grammy and Mercury Music Prize Awards.

You can find out more about Carlos in this interview on our blog.

Jason O’Bryan is a record producer and bassist from London. He was a member of the Dub Pistols for over a decade and recorded and toured extensively during this time. Some of his career highlights include work on the Grammy Award-nominated soundtrack of Alfonso Cuarón’s’ film ‘Y Tu Mamá También’ with the band Molotov. Other notable credits include; composing and engineering music for the ‘Blade 2’ soundtrack with Busta Rhymes. His music has also been used in promotional trailers for the Austin Powers movie ‘International Man of Mystery’ and was also featured in the Ben Stiller movies ‘Mystery Men’ and ‘Zoolander’.

As a remix engineer Jason has worked with a diverse range of artists including Scissor Sisters, Moby, Ian Brown, Natalie Imbruglia, Lily Allen, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Bush & Sly & Robbie, he has released output on various labels including Geffen, Def Jam, PWL and R&S.

Jason is a core member of the academic team and teaches subjects across the syllabus but specialises in Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton, Melodyne and iZotope. He is also a certified Pro Tools and Logic X instructor. 

Find out more about Jason O’Bryan in his interview on our blog.

Yannis Iliopoulos is our music business lecturer. His teaching covers all aspects of the music industry within our music business module.  He is the founder and Director of The Sound Of Everything Records and its publishing arm Timespace Music Publishing, which have successfully built up a catalogue of more than 300 releases so far. Yannis has a strong academic background, having studied Physics at Imperial College and Mathematics at King’s College.

Yannis brings with him a breadth of experience in the music industry and music business education with a strong background in entertainment law, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and new business models. He has worked extensively as a strategist, mentor, and coach for creatives.

For more on Yannis read our interview with him. To read articles by Yannis follow him on LinkedIn.

Darren Suckling is the Campus and Admissions Manager at Abbey Road Institute London. He is responsible for the management and administration of the school, overseeing all the day-to-day running and the long-term plans for the campus.

Darren has 23 years of experience in music education. During this time he’s built a strong network across all areas of the music industry with producers, artists, labels and tutors. Having worked at some of the biggest music schools in the UK, Darren understands the passion, professionalism and commitment that are the key elements that make Abbey Road Institute unique.

Alongside the management of the school, Darren is actively involved in supporting enquirers and applicants along with Tomas Miller-Cheevers, our Admissions and Student Administrator. He’s available to give further insight into our programmes through 121 sessions as well as being part of the Admissions Panel which interviews our students. He works closely alongside our Programme Director Carlos Lellis, to ensure the highest quality of teaching and delivery at our London school.

Domenico Angarano graduating at the Naples Conservatory of Music, Domenico Angarano attended jazz workshops in Italy, New York and London, with artists such as Medeski Martin & Wood, Cyro Baptista, David Fiuczynski.

Since relocating to London he has moved closer to the world of contemporary dance, as well as continuing to specialise in arrangement and composition. He has composed and played for Akram Khan, Hofesh Shechter, Hannes Langolf, Becky Namgauds, Jorge Crecis, the Hong Kong Academy of Arts, English National Ballet and for choreographers Riccardo Buscarini,  Jean Abreu,  Marso Riviere, Hagit Yakira, Lee Brummer, Leila McMillan, Krishna Zivraj, Stefano Rosato, Marie Forbes, Stefan Jovanovic.

In the last 20 years he acquired knowledge of music from South Italy, West Africa, India, Southern Europe, Brazil, Cuba and the Middle East. 

As a bassist he has performed and published albums with Sarathy Korwar, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Kefaya, Slivovitz amongst others.

All of these cultures inform his creative process to aim towards a new form of western contemporary music infused in these traditions. Music that shows how connected human beings are, in a world that is politically moving towards a more fragmented and individualistic society.

Experiencing different cultures and music traditions can bring diverse audiences together. Both music and dance can become more accessible to areas of society that otherwise don’t see these forms of art as representative of contemporary society.

Domenico Angarano teaches music theory on the Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering as well as the Music Theory for Producers short course.

Marcello Ruggiu is an Ableton Certified Trainer and an established music producer and sound engineer. He’s the author of Ableton Live: ‘Triucchi e segreti’ or ‘Tricks and Secrets’ which deep dives into how he built his own sounds in an original way within the Ableton Live sequencer, showcasing an innovative starting point for using this DAW.

Marcello’s passion for electronic music has led him to work with many musicians and artists as a programmer, remixer, sound designer, ghost producer, and also a performer. He has played on stages at Womad, Glastonbury and for Sofar Sounds supporting Aka George. More recently he’s been recording and performing with his solo project, Amousement, at many festivals around Europe and the UK, the last show being the Strawberry Festival in 2019. In 2020 Marcello worked on the main stage of the Bangface festival as a visual performer.

He also co-hosts the CRUX AV series of events hosting live audiovisual electronic music performances. His experience of event organisaion for the CRUX series has led him to learn visual programming and work as a visual artist as well as a music producer and performer.

Alex Scannell was an engineer at Abbey Road Studios for over 10 years. During his tenure, Alex engineered across all genres of music, from recording symphony orchestras to bands and everything in between. Being able to have access to the peerless equipment available at the studio, Alex dug deep into the studio’s history. He was recording full projects using nothing but analogue signal chains of priceless equipment, valve mics, 2″ Tape machines and gear such as the TGmk2 desk.

On leaving Abbey Road, Alex set up a location recording business Audio Spark mobile. He has recorded or mixing projects for clients such as The Divine Comedy, Beverley Knight, Professor Green, The BBC, The Manic Street Preachers, Ed Sheeran and Ray Davies.

Alex regularly brings his knowledge and expertise back to Abbey Road Institute through workshops with our students, usually held in Studio Three. He shares his experience on the importance of getting things right from the beginning and avoiding commonly unconsidered pitfalls in a recording. “Being involved with Abbey Road Institute is amazing. It gives me an immediately practical way to pass this passion and knowledge on to the students”.

Alex Watson joins the Abbey Road Institute team to head up our technical services team as Technical Services Manager in our new home Angel Recording Studios.

Alex comes from a musical background having played in orchestras, brass bands and big bands and sang in choirs as well as working on and off stage in theatres during his teens. He always knew he wanted to progress in this area and then discovered the Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) degree at the University of Surrey, which led him to a career in recording studios.

Alex was a key member of the team at Angel Studios prior to its closure in 2019. Some of his personal highlights from this previous time include working on popular TV dramas, the variety of talented people he met from all departments and learning new skills from them. Particular highlights include working on the pre-records for the film Into the Woods with the likes of Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, and Chris Pine, plus the big band Christmas album with Kylie. Alongside his day job, Alex has also been composing for production music companies since 2012, which has meant getting his piano skills back up to scratch.

Alex’s role involves overseeing all the technical installations for the building; from keeping the teaching rooms up to standard to maintaining the larger room for commercial orchestral sessions. He brings with him a wealth of experience as well as knowledge and insight from his time at Angel and says of the reopening ‘It was a huge part of the industry for 40 years. To be able to re-open and offer that space again to the London scene is a huge boost for everyone in the industry.’

Daisy Rutter is a skilled producer, engineer and artist and graduated with our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering in 2022. The following year, Daisy joined our Technician team, fast forward to 2024 and she has since joined us as our Lead Technician!

Since completing her diploma, Rutter has been crafting and further developing her songwriting skills, performing, producing and engineering. When talking about her musical journey Rutter emphasises, “I learnt to read music before I could read.”

Over the years she has performed in prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and St. Stephen’s Cathedrall, Vienna. Outside of Rutter’s role at Abbey Road Institute, she is keeping busy working in two bands, sound engineering live music and recording as many artists as she can within her home studio. She also has plans to turn her home studio into a mobile recording studio with the help of producer/engineer and fellow alumni Gaetan Buisson.

As for what’s next? Daisy Rutter says, “we have big plans for the future.”

Tomas Miller-Cheevers is the Student Admissions Administrator at Abbey Road Institute London. Tomas is responsible for helping prospective students discover what it’s like to study with us. From providing information about our range of courses and how to apply to arranging tours of our facilities, interviews and more.

Tomas has played instruments from a young age. He first learnt the piano at school, before moving onto the guitar at age 12, achieving a Grade 8 from Rockschool whilst in the sixth form.

Tomas’s qualifications include A-levels in Music and Music Technology, a Higher Diploma in Music Performance from the Academy of Contemporary Music, and a BMus (Hons) Degree in Music from Kingston University.

Tomas is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, playing in multiple bands over the years. He is in two bands whose respective styles range from rock to metal, utilising pop song structures. He is also very active on social media both as a session musician and content creator.

Laviea Thomas is our Marketing Coordinator at Abbey Road Institute, London. Her role consists of managing and updating our website, curating social media copy, writing newsletters and compiling monthly reports.

Alongside working at Abbey Road Institute, Laviea freelances as a music and culture journalist and creative copywriter. Her work is spread across a variety of print and digital platforms including NME, Metal Hammer, The Quietus and more. Throughout her career Laviea has interviewed lauded artists and creative figures such as Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Dame Dash, feminist punk duo Nova Twins, nu-metal group Deftones and many more. She’s also had previous work and partnerships with PRS Foundation, Future PLC, Festival Republic, and the Heavy Music Awards.

With 5 years of experience writing in the music industry, Laviea has developed authentic and earnest relationships with a plethora of music industry professionals. She has experience across music PR, music journalism, marketing, and creative copywriting. You can read more about Laviea Thomas’ work on her portfolio here.

Lucy Kevil is our Front of House & Student Administrator at the Abbey Road Institute. Her main duties involve greeting guests and clients, liaising with Abbey Road to ensure a smooth running of our Angel One bookings and keeping track of student attendance/ finances.

Lucy has always had a passion for music, participating in choirs and learning instruments such as the piano and the guitar from a young age. She really started to hone in on that passion when she began vocal training at age 11. Having completed her ABRSM exams, she achieved Grade 8 Musical Theatre and Grade 5 Classical, whilst also training in Opera and Folk.

She studied Music at GCSE, and then went on to gain a BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Music at ELAM. There, she specialised in music performance, production, theory, business and song-writing, and was even given the opportunity of a work experience placement at EMI Records.

At present, Lucy releases electropop/hyperpop music under the stage name ‘Tapwaterlucy’. She performs all over London from The Garage to All Points East and currently holds 3 IMV Awards for her debut music video ‘Loveblind’, including ‘Best London Music Video’. 

Lucy is also a part of the up and coming music collective ‘LOUD LDN’. A group for female and non-binary musicians to support each other in their rise within the music industry. They organise events, share new music/gigs, post opportunities and have since been mentioned in notable magazines and radio shows such as ‘NME’ and ‘BBC Introducing’.

Raquel Saggin is a skilled producer and sound engineer from Curitiba, Brazil. In February 2024, she graduated with an Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering. She is now part of the technical team at Angel Studios. Alongside her role as a technician, Raquel works as a Junior Assistant Engineer at Music Immersive. Here she focuses primarily on Dolby Atmos mixing.

Raquel began building her career in Brazil, working at Trilhas Urbanas Studio, where she oversaw numerous recordings and productions. A standout achievement in her career was contributing to the engineering team for Let Her Music Play, a 24-hour live-streamed concert organized by the Donne Foundation. This event featured over 100 artists and earned a Guinness World Record for the ‘Longest Acoustic Music Live-Streamed Concert.’

As a vocalist, Raquel was a member of the Paidéia School of Music choir, Papo Coral, through which she collaborated with prestigious ensembles, including the Choir of Notre Dame Cathedral and the Maitrise of Radio France in Paris. She has also worked with renowned Brazilian artists Hermeto Pascoal and Marlui Miranda. 

Looking ahead, Raquel aims to continue producing and engineering for emerging artists in both the UK and Brazil. She is particularly passionate about fostering a supportive community for women in music production and engineering, helping to create new opportunities.

Learn more about Raquel Saggin in her portfolio.

Maria Quintero recently graduated from our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering with 84%. Since completing her studies, Maria (Majo) has joined our Technician team. 

Before studying here, Majo went to BIMM London and graduated with a 1st in BA (Hons) in Music Business. As a technician, Majo’s role entails helping students with their coursework, and exams, and assisting with commercial sessions in Angel One. Most importantly, Majo works to ensure all students are enjoying and making the most out of their studies. 

In pursuit of building a professional music portfolio, Majo has collaborated with a range of talent. Some of her career highlights thus far include making music and performing with talented musicians. Similarly, recording and engineering sessions with incredibly talented artists such as SOMOH and ESOSA.

As for the next steps, Majo hopes to start releasing her music and seeks to establish herself as a proficient engineer and producer in the music industry.

Stay up to date with Maria Quintero’s work here.

Carmel Comiskey is a producer, engineer and musician, who graduated from our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering course in 2023. Prior to coming to the UK, she spent many years studying and performing piano, cello and harp in Ireland and internationally. Since moving to London Comiskey has freelanced as a Studio Manager and Assistant Engineer at Tileyard X, The Park and Noatune Studios.

Comiskey has recorded and produced many UK-based and Irish artists. Since starting her latest position as a technician at Abbey Road Intsitute, she has also progressed into working as a runner and assistant for a variety of sessions, most notably with Sylvia Massy. Additionally, she is currently working on two film scores for short films set to be released next year.

A hard-working alumna and emerging talent, Carmel Comiskey, is always looking for ways to advocate for more diversity within the music industry. It’s with her work as Communications Manager for ‘Music Production for Women,’ that she’s keen to encourage more women and non-binary people into the music production and tech space.

Completing our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering in September 2023, Jack Belcher is another talented and driven alumnus to join our technician team in 2024.

Speaking about his new role, Jack tells us that he “looks forward to providing support for our students so that they can get the most out of their independent studio time.”

A talented saxophonist, pianist and flute player, Jack finds that his strengths mostly lie within classical production and editing. Throughout his studies, the alumnus has had a few early-stage, career-defining highlights. One that stands out the most is the time he produced a Chamber music session at Abbey Road Studio Two in collaboration with guest lecturer John Dunkerley. 

Moving forward, Jack’s aspirations for the future include producing classical and film score sessions. Although this is something that he has experience with, Jack Belcher is eager to expand his clientele with similar opportunities within the industry.

Alex Shishkin is a talented pianist, guitarist and singer who has joined our Technician team following graduating from our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering in June 2024.

Upon taking on this new role, Alex has told us that he is, “Looking forward to helping students get as much out of this experience as possible. Having technicians that you can relate to and feel comfortable enough to ask for help with is incredibly important.”

As for career highlights, a standout moment for Alex was being able to write and record his debut album whilst studying with us. In addition to helping the students with general queries, Alex looks forward to developing his technical skills as a runner in Angel One. 

As for what’s next, Alex Shishkin plans to release his debut album by the end of 2024 – which he is currently mixing. In the future, Alex wants to take his music to concerts and seeks to establish himself as a producer and mixer for other artists.

Stay up to date with Alex’s musical journey online.

James Brennan is an Abbey Road Institute graduate and member of our Technician team! While studying our Music Production course, Brennan produced, mixed and mastered a single titled ‘Moon Project.’ The track was made for multi-faceted folk artist Dan Ottewell and featured plays across BBC Introducing and Radio X.

He plays as a drummer for various acts in London and beyond. Some clientele include Brooke Law, Matt and the Night Walkers, Jessi Mac and more. He’s played previous live dates at renowned festivals Boomtown festival and Black Deer Festival. He has also had sold-out performances at Rough Trade Nottingham and Paper Dress Vintage, Hackney.

Additionally, James is a member of the London-based group Rolo Vango. The band is working on a new EP, which is scheduled for release in 2024. The EP was recorded at our Custom 75 studio at Abbey Road Studios and was co-produced by Brennan amongst fellow technician Yago Fernández.

Moving forward, Brennan is excited to assist students with technical support in this role. In addition, he is also thrilled by the opportunity to work as a runner on sessions in Angel One and is eager to find ways to help engineers and producers in the studio.

Augusto Errazuriz is a gifted multi-instrumentalist and producer from Chile. In June 2024, Augusto received his Music Production and Sound Engineering Diploma at our Global Graduation Ceremony. Since then, he has since joined us as a Technician.

The alumnus studied Music at the conservatory in Chile. During the pandemic, he felt the urge to develop his skills and explore Music Production. Following the lift of lockdown rules, Augusto moved to London to study for our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering.

As far as achievements go, Augusto is no stranger. While living in Chile, Augusto formed a band titled Soy Irracional. They went on to complete several albums and played numerous concerts and tours.

He has also had the opportunity to work on the composition and production for CONDY’s debut album PuDo HaBer SidO which was nominated for Citylab GAM Esenciales. Additionally, Augusto has produced several other projects, including Astro, Benja, Rocco, Macana, Lazaro, and Soho, among others.

On top of starting a new position on our Technician team, right now Augusto is focusing on creating a new album for his band Soy Irracional, and a debut album for up-and-coming art-pop songwriter Maria Monroy. In recent months, Augusto has ventured into new challenges: mixing music for other people, which he tells us he’s “never done before.” In addition to exploring the world of film music with composer Alfie Godfrey. 

Moving forward, Augusto Errazuriz hopes to continue expanding collaborations among the people in the program. Working under the musical moniker Cuco, you can listen to his artist roster playlist on Spotify here.

Yago Fernández is a composer, producer and engineer. He graduated from our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering in October 2023, with a Distinction. Prior to studying with us, Fernández studied Music and Sound Design at London South Bank University, where he finished with a first-class honours degree.

Graduating from us in 2023, Music Production alumnus James Williams has since joined us as one of our newest technicians. This new role entails helping students with their coursework/exams and assisting with commercial sessions at Angel One.

A talented singer-songwriter and producer, the alumnus currently works under the moniker of James Grace, a musical project showcasing his distinctive and intimate style of writing within a signature blend of pop, gospel and folk. 

When discussing his music career to date, some of his biggest achievements include recording at Abbey Road Studio Two, producing emerging alternative act Emmélin’s “I Flee but I Long” and most of all, recording his own EP with his classmates during his studies at the Institute. 

Right now, you can catch James performing tracks from his debut EP around London in preparation for its release. He recently played his first headline show of 2024 at The Finsbury, London in March, and in April, is set to play intimate acoustic sets at Quiet Light Sessions and Morocco Bound – both in London Bridge. 

Moving forward, the alumnus is ambitious about establishing himself as a commercial songwriter collaborating in the industry. He is also in the process of writing and arranging new material for his debut album. 

You can stay up to date with James Williams’ latest releases and new live dates on his Instagram!

Ramera Abraham is a London-based vocal producer, recording engineer, and songwriter. Having spent her younger years studying music in the Philippines, Abraham is now classically trained in piano, vocals, and drums. After completing her undergraduate degree in Canada, the multi-faceted created moved to London in 2017 to study our Advanced Diploma in Sound Engineering and Music Production course at Abbey Road Institute.

Upon graduating from the Institute, Abraham earned an engineering residency at Spotify’s Noteable studio, under the mentorship of Berklee College of Music. It was there that she dealt with daily studio operations and delved into the world of vocal production and engineering. After her Spotify residency, Abraham became a runner and then assistant engineer at Metropolis Studios, where she assisted on several projects. Including: Little Mix’s last two albums, Grammy-nominated musical theatre album “Cinderella” with Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ album, Carnage.

Abraham has since progressed into a freelance role, primarily at music distribution and artist services company, Platoon. Some of her biggest career highlights include working with Saint Harison, TianaMajor9, RAYE, Luz, Ms Banks, Henry Moodie, Kamille, and Matt Taylor. She was also included in SheSaid.So’s Alternative Power 100 List 2021 as one to watch, and is the Music Producers Guild’s Vocal Producer of the Year 2023.

Abraham has also taught several vocal production masterclasses with MPW, ICMP, University of Winchester, and at her alma mater, Abbey Road Institute. She has been creating vocal arrangements and writing harmonies from a very young age and has been in the professional recording industry for nearly six years. The majority of her work spans across the pop and R&B genres. Find out more about Ramera Abraham on her website. 

Charlotte Adelle is an Australian songwriter, producer, and vocal engineer who has established herself as one of the best of Sydney’s new generation of music producers.

An Abbey Road Institute Sydney graduate, Charlotte Adelle has garnered session credits with artists such as Masked Wolf, ULA, L-Fresh the Lion & Ayesha Madon.

Some of Adelle’s achievements include producing and engineering credits on releases by Thelma Plum, Eves Karydas, L-Fresh and more. She’s worked as an assistant engineer for artists such as Rae Sremmurd, ASAP Rocky & Timmy Trumpet.

A talented vocal engineer, this isn’t the only expertise she offers; clients book her for mixing services, vocal production, mastering services and 1:1 sessions on music production.

Check out this Spotify playlist of songs Adelle has co-written, produced, mixed & mastered.

Mark Appleby is a world-renowned ADR mixer who has rerecorded dialogue for some of the biggest films and TV shows of the last 20 years. He started his career in the field of sound post-production at the beginning of 2004, when he joined Goldcrest Post Production to assist in ADR and Foley sessions.

He later progressed to the role of Mix Technician and ADR Assistant then in 2007, Appleby became ADR Mix Engineer.

Mark has worked with directors like George Lucas, in “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith”, Tim Burton, in “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”  and Danny Boyle, in “T2 Trainspotting”. He has worked across all sorts of genres, from animation, in films like “Winnie the Pooh” to dramas including “The Iron Lady” and “V for Vendetta”, and action films such as “X-Men: First Class” and “Captain America: The First Avenger”.

He has worked on multiple projects with the director Matthew Vaughn, in the double production “Kingsman”, and Edgar Wright, in “The World’s End” and “Baby Driver”, which received a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures, by the Cinema Audio Society.

His recent credits include No time to Die, 1917 and Rocketman, as well as TV shows like The Witcher, The Queen’s Gambit and The Vikings.

If you’re curious to know more about ADR head to our article ‘Audio Post Production Glossary | Top 10 Terms Every Engineer Needs to Know. 

Having been officially credited on 32 Grammy Nominations and winning the coveted award for his work with The Clark Sisters, a few of James’ notable clients have included: Kanye West, Adam Levine, Rihanna, and John Legend.

After working out of countless big studios as a freelancer, in 2016 James launched his first public studio in Chicago, branded Coda Room Audio. In 2019, James received Arts Council England’s formal endorsement for a UK Tier 1 “Exceptional Talent” visa, paving the way for a new adventure and expansion across the pond. While still retaining a presence in the Chicago/USA scene, James now also resides in London and remains available for hire both inside and outside of Coda Room Audio.

James delivers regular guest lectures on Dolby Atmos Mixing.

Martin Atkins is an entrepreneur in cultural arts endeavours. His 40+ years in the music business span across genres, borders, and industries.

He was a member of Public Image Ltd (1979-1985) and Killing Joke. He founded the industrial supergroup Pigface, The Damage Manual, and Murder Inc.  He has also contributed to Nine Inch Nails and Ministry during their most celebrated periods. He is the owner of Invisible Records (est. 1988), founder of the Museum Of Post Punk and Industrial Music in Chicago (2021), The creator of GTFOOB coffee with Dark Matter Coffee, and is the author of 3 books on the Music Business including Tour: Smart. Martin is also the Coordinator of Music Industry Studies at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, USA.

Lara Baker is Director of Business Development UK & Ireland at Songtrust, the World’s largest global royalty collection service and publishing administrator.  Her role entails securing new business and maintaining relationships with songwriter and publisher clients. Lara has been recognised on Billboard’s 2021 International Power Players List.

Prior to this, Lara spent 14 years advising and supporting independent artists and labels at AIM, the independent label trade association for the UK, before beginning her own company The BKRY, to consult with music organisations and event producers on their strategy and execution. Lara has also consulted for clients including BBC Music Introducing Live, The Great Escape Festival, the Musicians Union, Liverpool Sound City, the Music Managers Forum and AmericanaFest UK.

Lara is a board member of The Americana Music Association UK as well as a frequent speaker at a number of events including TEDx, SXSW, UN Women and Midem. She is also a founding committee member of the Music Week’s Women in Music Awards.

Jerry Barnes has produced, performed and written for artists such as Roberta Flack, Chaka Khan, Carly Simon, Whitney Houston, Prince, Ashanti, Stevie Wonder, Patti Labelle, Christina Aguilera, Raul Midon, Chic, Jota Quest, Katreese Barnes, Bebe Winans, Bette Midler, Nas, AZ., Sting, Empire of the Sun, Jessie J… and many more.

Jerry spends much of his time as the bassist for Nile Rodgers (Chief Creative Advisor at Abbey Road) and the CHIC Organisation, touring internationally all year round. He has produced one of the biggest bands in Brazil (Jota Quest) and produced and written with acclaimed French artist Nina Attal.

In 2018 our students were part of a session with Jerry Barnes, drummer Ralph Rolle, and many of the artists who are part of the CHIC Organisation or a dedicated masterclass in Abbey Road’s Studio One. You can find out more about this session on our blog. 

Haydn Bendall is a record producer, engineer and mixer. He was a senior engineer at Abbey Road Studios for more than ten years and in 2009 was awarded the Audio Pro Industry Excellence Award for Best Studio Engineer.
Haydn started his musical career at Orange Studios in Soho in London. He then moved to Abbey Road Studios in 1972 where he joined Ken Townsend’s team as a part-time assistant. One year later he was offered a full-time position and worked there for the next seventeen years.

Haydn has worked on a vast array of albums and soundtracks too numerous to mention. In 1991 Haydn became an independent producer/engineer and comes back to Abbey Road on a regular basis.

Our students have had the opportunity to record with Haydn in Abbey Road’s Studio Two many times and learn from his extensive experience and expertise.

Watch our interview with Haydn.

Xantoné Blacq is a talented music composer, artist, or better yet, ‘The Next Exciting Thing In Your Life’!

With a career spanning over a quarter of a century to date, Xantoné is a creative force. In addition to his original music, he has collaborated with artists such as Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, Earth Wind & Fire, Emeli Sandé, Laura Mvula, Jessie J, Nigel Kennedy and more. He has also worked on the productions/campaigns of international brands. Including The BBC, Amazon, LG, Brewdog, Huggies and CNN. Out of 900+ applicants for BBC Open Music, Xantoné has been chosen as one of the 30 people successfully accepted. He teaches masterclasses in creativity internationally and is a Yamaha Music Endorsed Artist.

Xantoné has performed at leading music events including, The Grammy Awards, Glastonbury, Montreux Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, and Lollapalooza. Additionally, in territories as varied as Brazil, China, Germany, The Caribbean, France, South Korea, the UK, Indonesia, the US and more.

Additionally, Xantoné is an elected Senator at the IVORS Academy.

Xantoné Blacq’s latest single “FUN!” is available to stream everywhere.

Daniel Boyle has been working in the industry for 17 years. Beginning his career as an in-house engineer for a large commercial studio where he stayed for 6 years before setting up his own studio, to focus on offering analogue mixing; and to be a base for his own productions.

Over the last decade, he has made his name primarily in the Reggae world. Producing and mixing albums for many of the Reggae genres founding artists, such as Max Romeo & Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Culminating with a Grammy Nominated album for Lee Perry. As is common in the Reggae world, his production efforts for the likes of Lee Perry, are wholly independent, working on his own releases from inception through to release. Working for an artist directly, arranging, engineering and producing the music, and in many cases releasing it independently also.

For his external client work, Daniel now operates full time out of his home studio, as a Mix engineer. He mixes using vintage analogue equipment, centred around a highly customised SSL 6000G+ Console. His persistence in continuing to use a dusty analogue console and ancient outboard, to mix and provide highly creative dub versions for his clients, has seen his signature dub techniques be employed across a number of genres; from Rock to Afrobeat.

Daniel Boyle gives regular guest lectures for us, where he conducts a session split between the history of Dub music and a practical workshop on Dub mixing techniques. You can find out more about Daniel in this interview on our blog.

The Breath is Manchester-based guitarist Stuart McCallum and singer/flautist Ríoghnach Connolly. They met on the city’s gig circuit in the late noughties. An unlikely pairing though it was, he an acclaimed guitar whiz, ex long-time member of The Cinematic Orchestra and a softly spoken Manchester urbanite, she a folk singer with a larger-than-life personality and a powerful voice to match. Their connection was immediate; they formed The Breath in 2016, a singer-songwriter duo to present their contemporary take on alt-folk. For them, it’s all about the song. Connolly is a storyteller and their exquisitely crafted, honest, personal, heartfelt songs are as likely to touch on childhood summers and first love as cultural dislocation, postcolonial injustices and grief. But it’s Ríoghnach’s impassioned delivery and extraordinary stop-you-in-your-tracks voice, coupled with Stuart’s understated brilliance that is so engaging.

The Breath have released three albums on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. Their breakthrough album, ‘Carry Your Kin’ (2016) delved deeply into the spaces between rock, ambient and Irish folk, where layered vocals, mesmerising guitar riffs and expansive folk arrangements created a big sound. ‘Let the Cards Fall’ followed in 2018, and, like the first, was recorded with a full band granting a multi-textured kaleidoscope of sound with a cinematic sensibility.

Ríoghnach Connolly receive an RTÉ Folk Award nomination for Best Folk Singer and won Folk Singer Of The Year at the 2019 BBC R2 Folk Awards for which the duo were also nominated as Best Duo/Group. During the pandemic of 2020/2021, The Breath returned to the studio to record a set of songs in remembrance of American lost folk icon, Karen Dalton. In the spring of 2021, they released a two-track single, ‘Something On Your Mind’ and original song, ‘Remembering Mountains’. They release their third studio album on Real World Records in 2023.

We are delighted to be working with The Breath in 2022 as part of our Song Production Masterclass with Hans-Martin Buff.

Phill Brown is a record producer and recording engineer who has worked with some of the biggest artists in the music industry for over 55 years. On huge hits from  The Stones’ “Beggars Banquet” to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”.

Phill started his career at the legendary Olympic Studios in 1967 before becoming a house engineer for Island Studios Basing Street in 1970. He’s worked on several award-winning projects, including Rokia Traroe’s Tchamanche, which won World Music Album of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent of the Grammys.

The list of over 300 artists that he’s worked with reads like a who’s who of the music industry, including: Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Cliff, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, Jeff Beck, Bob Marley, Robert Palmer, Dire Straits, China Crisis, Talk Talk, Robert Plant, Faithless, Dido, Marti Pellow, Dave Gilmour, Zero 7, Jarvis Cocker, Laura Marling, Bombay Bicycle Club, David Gray, Maxi Jazz.

You can find out more about Phill Brown on his website.

Bernard Butler is a musician and producer and a founding member of legendary Britpop band Suede. He has been noted as one of Britain’s most original and influential guitarists and has worked extensively as a producer, making records for The Libertines, Tricky, Duffy, Black Kids, Kate Nash, Nerina Pallot, Teleman, Findlay Brown, Daley, The Cribs, James Morrison, Frankie & The Heartstrings, Texas and Paloma Faith.

Butler has won many awards for work as both an artist and producer including the Producer’s Award at the 2009 BRIT Awards, Producer of the Year at the 2008 Music Managers Forum Awards, and was nominated for Best Producer at the 2009 Music Week Awards.

Bernard regularly visits us to run a songwriting and pre-production masterclass for our students. During these classes, two students’ demos are chosen and under Bernard’s guidance, the students perform and collectively develop them into fully formed songs.

Find out more about Bernard Butler’s masterclasses with our students on our blog.

Hans-Martin Buff began his career as a recording engineer and music producer in 1993 at Pachyderm Studios, Minnesota, USA, where he started out as a runner, making coffee before progressing to hone his studio skills assisting on projects such as Live’s million-seller “Throwing Copper”.

Hans-Martin worked his way through various local rock’n’roll studios before he found a more permanent home at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios. He became Prince’s personal engineer and worked there for four years. During this period, he wasn’t only responsible for Prince’s recordings, but also for the studio affairs of world-renowned artists, including No Doubt, Chaka Khan and Larry Graham.

Being a native of Germany, Hans-Martin Buff relocated to his home country in 2001, where he continued his career as an independent recording engineer and producer, and where he has since recorded, mixed and produced a host of national and international talent, such as Mousse T., Joss Stone, Zucchero, Eric Burdon, Roachford, Maxi Priest and the Scorpions and more.

Hans-Martin has become an expert in the making of 3D-Audio for headphones, and regularly advises artists and industry professionals on its vast creative possibilities. He is heading up our Song Production Masterclass in 2022 and you can find out more about his work in this interview.

Trevor Coley is the Managing Director, founder and designer of Sontronics, a British microphone company launched in 2005 and based along the South Coast in Dorset.

Trevor designs, develops and tests all Sontronics’ new products and spends most of his days developing and making microphones as well as managing the global distribution network.

He also works alongside top producers who are part of Sontronics’ beta-testing group; including Flood (U2, Editors and Foals), Paul Epworth (Adele and Coldplay) as well as several engineers at Abbey Road Studios.

Trevor delivers recording workshops focussed on microphone selection and studio set up. You can find out about these workshops on our blog.

Engineer, producer, and film music editor Fiona Cruickshank is a three-time MPG Award winner. Securing wins for the Break-through Producer of the Year and Recording Engineer of the Year categories in 2022 and again for Recording Engineer of the Year in 2024.

Fiona’s portfolio shows a breadth of creative approaches transcending film, music, and performance arts, from mixing the songs featured on Sex Education (seasons 2 & 3) to recording the orchestral elements of Paul Weller’s number-one album On Sunset. She also worked with Alicia Keys, on her single for Netflix series Queen Charlotte and The National on their highly anticipated album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein. Noteworthy films Fiona has worked on include The Little Mermaid, Greatest Days, and The Whale.

Recently, Fiona Cruickshank’s Film, TV, and gaming projects have seen her working with Christopher Benstead on The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Nick Foster on Lover Stalker Killer, and Nick Arundel & Rupert Cross on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. New music collaborations include co-producing, recording, and mixing Keaton Henson’s latest instrumental album Somnambulant Cycles, as well as recording Anne Nikitin’s epic score for live experience Moonwalkers.

Alokananda Dasgupta is a composer based in Mumbai, India and is the daughter of the poet and filmmaker, Buddhadeb Dasgupta. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in English Literature from St. Xavier’s College. Alokananda was working on her English Literature Masters at Calcutta University when she decided to pursue her lifelong passion for music in Toronto. There she received a Bachelor of Music with Honours in Theory and Composition at York University, where she has also guest-lectured.

Alokananda gravitated naturally towards music composition for films. Her eclectic music palette has led her to work in National award-winning Marathi films like Shala and Fandry. She was also selected as one of five for the Mumbai Composers Lab in 2013. She received the Prabhat Purashkar and the Sanksriti Kala Darshan awards for the best background score in 2012 and 2014. Her work on her father’s films includes Anwar Ki Ajeeb Kissa, Tope, and Urojahaj, among others.

In 2016, Alokananda was invited to Berlin to attend the Berlinale Talents under the Music Composer and Sound Studio category. There she provided music and songs for the feature film Trapped. The composer later scored the Netflix Original Series Sacred Games 1 and 2, in 2018 and 2019 respectively. In 2020, Alokananda composed the music for AK vs. AK and won the 2020 Filmfare for Best Background Music (Series) for Sacred Games 2, which was also nominated for an Emmy for Best International Series. In 2022, she was recognized as one of the BAFTA Breakthrough Artists for India. Recent work includes two highly-rated series, Jubilee (2023), and The Jengaburu Curse (2023).

Conor Dalton has 15 years of audio mastering experience with his company Glowcast Audio Mastering, working on music from Daft Punk, Jeff Mills, Marcel Dettmann, Amelie Lens, Kobosil, and many more.

He’s also one of the engineers at Calyx mastering in Berlin where his credits include Rødhåd, Moderat, RedBull, Universal Music, as well as tutor at Berklee School of Music (Valencia), and musician in the ambient experimental electronica band “Island People” (Record label: Raster) and in the 77 person band “Headless Chaos” (an NFT music project from Songcamp).

Find out more about Conor Here.

Riccardo Damian is an Italian Grammy Award-winning audio engineer/mixer/producer based in London. Passionate about music since childhood, he started his journey at the age of 14 in a studio in Treviso, where he had the opportunity to see and start to learn about audio engineering and get familiar with analog gear, tape machines and vintage microphones.

Eager to pursue a career in audio, Riccardo moved to London in 2012 to study audio engineering. During his student years, he worked as an assistant engineer in several studios, including Red Bull Studios. Shortly before his graduation, Riccardo was offered the opportunity to work for Mark Ronson. He started his career path in the position of In-House Audio Engineer for Mark, working around the world with incredible artists such as Adele, Lady Gaga, Lily Allen, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa and more. In 2016, Riccardo was awarded a Grammy Award in the category “Record of The Year” for his contribution on the song Uptown Funk. After going freelance in 2017, Ricardo has produced, engineered and mixed a variety of projects for artists such as Jorja Smith, Sampha, Sam Smith, Ezra Collective, Yebba, Masterpiece and many more.

Riccardo Damian regularly gives guest lectures and has delivered hands-on recording workshops at Abbey Road where our students have had the chance to record with him and learn from his experience and expertise.

Enos Desjardins is a Finnish-Canadian supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer based in London. He has over 12 years of experience in the film industry. Enos has worked on projects ranging from commercials and small independent feature films to big-budget TV series and big studio movies. Enos’s approach to his work combines attention to detail, a focus on supporting the vision of each director and a love for storytelling. He considers sound to be an integral part of the storytelling process. He goes beyond just making things ‘sound good’ and contributes to the narrative language of filmmaking.

After winning several awards for his work on the short film ‘Food for Thought’ (including the Music & Sound Award for Best Sound), he was nominated for Best Sound at the 2018 Finnish Film Academy Jussi Awards for the feature film ‘Thick Lashes of Lauri Maäntyvaara’.

In addition to the breadth of his industry work, Enos is a guest lecturer on our Advanced Diploma in Audio Post-Production for Film and TV. You can learn more about Enos Desjardins and his work on his website.

John Dunkerley regularly guest lectures on our Advanced Diploma in Music Production and Sound Engineering. He brings a wealth of experience and expertise to our students. John’s background in the recording industry is extensive and his reputation is legendary.

John had previously engineered at Decca for some thirty years and ten years for EMI Classics and is well known for his attention to detail and no-compromise approach to work, ensuring recordings of the highest standard. His greatest successes were establishing such high and consistent standards for recordings made with both the Montreal Symphony and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras over a period of some twenty years. He is an aficionado of the Decca Tree mic formation which he teaches as part of our programme, you can find out more about this on our blog.

The number of discs he has worked on is well over one thousand, including some sixty operas. Film credits include his work with Stanley Kubrick.

John’s excellence has been underlined with numerous awards over the years, including The Gramophone, Edison, Echo, Prix Italia, Japan Academy, Classical Brits, Prix Caecilia, Liszt Academy, Grand Prix du Disque, Stereo Review Record of the Year, Juno and numerous Grammys. You can find out more about his work teaching the Decca Tree over on our blog.

Pete Dowsett is a well respected audio engineer and has worked in many facets of the music industry, including studio engineering, mixing, mastering and live sound. He considers rock production and drum engineering to be his specialities.

He has worked at some of the most well-known studios in the UK, including Metropolis Studios, where he has worked with major artists such as Pharrell, Snoop, Black Eyed Peas, Michael Kiwanuka. Since going freelance Pete has been working at various studios whilst setting up his own studio in Harrow. He has also been engineering for prestigious songwriter/producer Tom Nichols (Kylie Minogue, All Saints, Sugababes).

As a live sound engineer, Pete has toured with Twisted Wheel, Ugly Kid Joe and Fozzy playing all the major festivals. As an in-house engineer, he has worked on front-of-house or monitors for Foals, Pulled Apart By Horses, Dodgy, The Darkness, Chase and Status, Miles Kane, Buzzcocks and Cast.

You can find out more about Pete Dowsett in this interview on our blog.

Stuart Epps is a British record producer and audio engineer. His career in music began in 1967 when he left school and applied to be a runner at Dick James Music in London.

Stuart worked his way up through being a disc cutter/tape copier to an assistant engineer with award-winning record producer Steve Brown. This led to Stuart working with Steve on Elton John’s ‘Lady Samantha’. During that time he became good friends with the still relatively unknown Elton John and Steve Brown who was then acting as his manager. Epps also began working in the demo studio at DJM and in a short time had learned everything he could about it. He produced his first record with a band called ‘Birds of a Feather’, which he did at Trident Studios with Elton John as the session pianist and Rick Wakeman on the keyboards.

Elton John’s next record was his ‘big one’ featuring huge orchestral scores for numbers like ‘Your Song’ and ‘Sixty Years On’. This project saw Epps take on a project management role away from the console working closely with now-legendary Producer Gus Dudgeon at Trident Studios.

In recent years, Stuart has continued to work with big-name artists to great acclaim, as well as helping a host of promising new up-and-coming artists to sound their best.

Kipper Eldridge is a highly accomplished producer, musician, writer, and programmer who has won Grammy and Emmy awards for his work. Over the years he has worked with a range of artists like Sting, Mary J Blige, Stevie Wonder and more. He has also produced albums that have sold over 14 million copies.

Kipper’s passion for music began at a young age when his father gave him his first guitar at 7. He progressed quickly, writing his own songs and later forming the band One Nation, which signed to IRS/MCA. After producing two albums and touring extensively Kipper decided to focus on production and writing. He’s previously worked extensively with Gary Numan, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Curtis Stigers. He’s also worked on numerous Hollywood film underscores with legendary film composer Trevor Jones.

Kipper also produced Sting’s best-selling solo album, Brand New Day, for which he won a Grammy for Best Pop Album. In addition, he’s also toured as Sting’s MD/Keyboard player for five years and produced two follow-up albums.

Most recently, Kipper has collaborated with Bang and Olufsen on a bespoke album project under his own name. He’s also produced with up-and-coming Hackney artist Benjamin David and completed an album with Javanese artist Rico Mahesi under the production banner of ESP.

He has his own mix room in Bali and partners with Labyrinth Studios Nyenyi, giving him a world-class facility in Asia. However, his love of London’s energy, artists, and studios means he still travels frequently.

Andy Farnell is a British computer scientist and electronics engineer who established the field of Procedural Audio. He authored the influential MIT textbook `Designing Sound`, described as the bible of computational sound design. Andy’s role as a systems and signal processing specialist has involved work with prominent artists, directors and developers. His work includes machine learning, signal analysis, search, storage, hardware and software product design.  

As a visiting professor at many European Universities and consultant to new media technology companies, Andy is a well known teacher and mentor. He also is one of our guest lectures here at Abbey Road Institute and introduced PureData to our students.

Olga FitzRoy, a renowned recording and mixing engineer and Executive Director at the Music Producers Guild (MPG), has worked with some of the world’s most celebrated composers. Her film and TV scores include The Crown with Martin Phipps, Doctor Who with Segun Akinola, The Mauritanian with Tom Hodges, Gentleman Jack with Murray Gold, and The Innocents with Carly Paradis.

Olga has worked with some of the world’s biggest acts, including Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Muse, and Dua Lipa and Martin Garrix. She was featured by the BBC in their 2018 Woman’s Hour Power series and is a prominent advocate on women’s issues, her campaign for Parental Pay Equality having led to a new bill being debated in Parliament.

In early 2021 Olga made an appearance on the short new documentary, In Ctrl, which shines a light on women’s underrepresentation in music production. Some of which was filmed within our teaching spaces at Abbey Road. To find out more about Olga head to her profile on the AIR Studios website and read her interview in Resolution Mag.

Karolina Jedrzejczyk is a foley artist, recordist and editor. As the Head of Foley at Sound Disposition, a sound post-production studio in Soho, London she has a vast array of specialist knowledge and skills in this area.

Throughout her career, Karo has contributed to a range of award-winning feature films, TV series and documentaries as well as animations and interactive and multidisciplinary projects. Her recent credits include Sky’s series ‘Bulletproof’, Babak Anvari’s thriller ‘Wounds’, Thomas Hardiman’s murder mystery ‘Medusa Deluxe’ and David Liban’s dark comedy ‘Publish or Perish’. Karo has also created foley effects for a number of interactive projects, such as the Android/iOS video games ‘The Gallery’ and ‘HUSH – Crane’.

Karo is an active member of the British sound industry organisation AMPS (the Association of Motion Picture Sound). Her work has been featured in an article for The Times ‘Foley artists make it into spotlight’ and she also appeared in ScreenSkills’ educational 360-degree immersive film ‘First Day: In Post’. Karolina Jedrzejczyk is an inspiring educator and teaches foley as a guest lecturer on our part-time Advanced Diploma for Audio Post Production for Film and TV.  

Photo credit to Lucy Young.

Guy Katsav is a music producer, mix engineer, musician and remixer based in London. His selected credits include mixing a No. 1 album by The View and a Mercury award-nominated album of 2011 Brit award winner Laura Marling. He has engineered for David Guetta, Groove Armada, The Streets, Gossip, Akon, Noah and The Whale, Moby, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Sway, De La soul, among many others.

Guy worked at Soho Recording Studios for nine years and in 2013 launched his own Denmark Street Studios in legendary music hub Denmark street and in 2016 D’arblay Street Studios. His versatile showreel also includes compositions for major commercial brands such as Ribena, Sky and Evian. In recent years he has been working with The Prodigy, Majestic (Kiss Fm), Major Lazer and more.

Guy guest lectures on our Advanced Diploma giving insights into his experience in the industry and how to bring creativity to your work.

You can find out more about his work at Denmark Street Studios here.

Over his 30+ year career in the music industry, Kwame Kwaten has been a musician, manager, producer, consultant and A&R. And now has founded artist service company Ferocious Talent where he runs everything from top to bottom, his A&R skills are unparalleled.

His own writing and production credits include work for Jay Z, Shola Ama, Mick Jagger, Tom Jones and Seal to name a few. The band, D-Influence (which Kwame was a member of), signed to Atlantic Records, and accomplished many amazing moments such as supporting Michael Jackson, Prince and James Brown on tour. His A&R and management work over the years has seen him discover Shola Ama, Laura Mvula and Rumer resulting in millions of records sales and multiple award wins and nominations.

Kwame is also currently a Trustee at The Brits Trust, Vice-Chair of the UK’s Music Managers Forum, Trustee of the MOBO Charity and Co-Chair of the BRITS Diversity Committee. He is also Co-Director of a social enterprise company, Cre8ing Vision, with Andrea Euell and Nicola Charles.This company houses The Ultimate Seminar, Ultimate Live, The Ultimate Circle, The A&R Initiative Focus Groups and The MBOL Show.

Point Blank Music School appointed him as Music Industry Mentor, a part time role that he relishes.

John Kurlander is probably best known for his engineering and mixing work on the Lord of the Rings. He took home 3 consecutive Grammys for best score soundtrack album and 3 consecutive TEC awards for best film sound production.

John started out at Abbey Road Studios when he was 16. His first major assignment was to work as the assistant engineer on the Beatles “Abbey Road” LP (which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019) at the request of George Martin and Geoff Emerick. During his time at Abbey Road John recorded a wide variety of pop and rock recordings and then moved on to symphonic orchestras. For EMI Classics, he recorded many of the world’s major orchestras including Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, international performers such as Placido Domingo and Itzhak Perlman, and over 100 Broadway and West End original cast albums. By the early 1980s John Kurlander had become the engineer of choice for many bands recording with orchestras such as Elton John, Toto, Extreme, Everything But The Girl, Greg Lake, Pete Townshend and Ozzy Osbourne.

After he left Abbey Road in 1996 he moved to Los Angeles to concentrate on freelance film scoring and video game soundtracks. His film and video game credits include work with composers Howard Shore, Marco Beltrami (Scream Trilogy, Hurt Locker, I Robot, Logan) and music for a series of Star Wars games, World of Warcraft, Remember Me, Assassin’s Creed, Skyrim and Overwatch to name just a few.

John Leckie started his career at Abbey Road in 1970 working as a tape-operator with legendary artists such as John Lennon, George Harrison, and Syd Barrett before progressing onto engineering duties for Pink Floyd, Wings and Roy Harper amongst others.
In 1976 he became a producer whilst still at Abbey Road making albums with Bebop Deluxe, XTC, The Adverts, Magazine and Simple Minds.

In the 80’s and 90’s he helped launch the careers of two of the most exciting and influential rock bands of all time by producing two of their most significant albums, The Stone Roses (The Stone Roses) & Radiohead (The Bends).

John has also produced and mixed albums for numerous other high profile artists including two albums with Muse, The Verve, Kula Shaker, Cast, The Coral, The Fall, Dr John, Los Lobos, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Baaba Maal and New Order and still works to this day as a much in demand freelance producer. John has won many awards for producing including a Brit, Q Award, Music Week Award and more. 

John visits Abbey Road Institute London to talk with our students about his experiences, answer questions and offer advice for getting ahead in the industry.  

Steve Lillywhite, CBE is an English record producer. Since he began his career in 1977, Lillywhite has been credited on over 500 records and has collaborated with a variety of musicians including U2, The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, Bruce Foxton (of The Jam), Big Country, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads, Morrissey, Thirty Seconds to Mars, The Killers, The Pogues, David Byrne, XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Simple Minds, The Psychedelic Furs, Beady Eye, Phish, Counting Crows and Joan Armatrading.

Steve has won six Grammy Awards, including the Producer of The Year in 2006, and was made a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE) in 2012 for his contributions to music.

Andrew Mackay is an Olivier Award-nominated and award-winning classically trained composer and producer. He is the co-founder of electronica/world music act Bombay Dub Orchestra alongside Garry Hughes.

Andrew studied piano, clarinet and composition at the London College of Music under Dr. Lloyd Webber and John McCabe. His music often fuses orchestral with folk and traditional elements of music from the project’s region. He has scored many films in India, including the National award-winning Hamid by Aijaz Khan.

Andrew’s company Bohemia Junction Ltd, exclusively represents Abbey Road Studios for India and the FAMES’ Skopje Studio Orchestra. Over the last decade, he has also provided music services for dozens of films, concerts and Games.

He is the Director of India’s first ever Composers Lab, which started in 2013 as part of the Mumbai Film Festival in association with Abbey Road, PRS for Music UK and supported by BMI.

The Oliver Award Nominated music soundtrack to ‘Life of Pi’ was Andrew’s first foray into scoring for theatre, followed by Henry V with Kit Harington (Donmar) in 2022 and Butter Arms (a short film for Royal Ballet/ Royal Opera House). He recently scored the play ‘A Doll’s House’ by Tanika Gupta after Ibsen directed by Meneka Das.

Andrew is working on the 4th Bombay Dub Orchestra album as well as several feature films.

Sylvia Massy has been producing, engineering and mixing popular music for decades. She’s renowned for her work with Tool, System of a Down, Johnny Cash and Prince. Having received over 25 gold and platinum records including awards for her work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sevendust and Tom Petty, Sylvia is highly respected for her work.

She’s also an accomplished fine artist, a published columnist, in-demand educator and relentless entrepreneur. Hugely passionate about all things audio, she is an avid collector of microphones and is thought to have the world’s largest collection of vintage microphones. Her visits to Abbey Road, alongside masterclasses with our students, have included documenting the microphones owned by the studio for a new book.

Sylvia has delivered some of our most avant-garde workshops to date, including experimentation with filtering sound through mini Babybel cheese, pickles and a lamp.. you can find out more about Sylvia’s creative studio techniques on our blog.

Julian Marshall is a songwriter, composer, lecturer, and musician with years of experience as both a songwriter and A&R executive. Julian’s early career saw him perform with chart-topping acts Marshall Hain, The Flying Lizards, and Eye to Eye. Julian has worked extensively as a songwriter, producer and session musician.  In the 1980s he formed the group Eye to Eye with American songwriter and performer Deborah Berg. The group recorded two classic albums for Warner Brothers produced by Steely Dan producer Gary Katz and a latter-day third album produced by Roxy Music producer Rhett Davies. He has also worked in A&R for Boulevard Records of Los Angeles and became Senior A&R man for Polydor Records, UK. 

A new chapter as a composer of longer-form work (Out of the Darkness, The Angel in the Forest) began in 2009 and today songwriting and composition take a central position in his creative life alongside his deep commitment to supporting others through teaching, mentoring and coaching.

Ary Maudit is a non-binary producer and sound engineer who crafted their ears both in live and studio environments. Their mission is to empower LGBTQIA+, Women, and Trans artists, inspired by the motivation of creating a gender equal environment within the music industry.

They started as runner at The Rattle Studio, and they are currently working as a Freelance Engineer mainly at Strongroom Studios, and as the Front of House Engineer for Art School Girlfriend. They extensively worked as an assistant for Inflo, Ethan Jones, alongside working on the recent records of Sault, Yungblud, and more.

When not engineering, Ary is a Mentor for Saffron Records. Find out more about Ary Maudit here through their Website, and Instagram.

Mat McKinley worked during the 90’s and early noughties as a free-lance media composer, including stints as an in-house composer for The Music Sculptors, and worked on a multitude of different projects covering TV and radio commercials, animation series, interactive media, exhibitions, theatre, modern dance and voice-overs. His work has been heard on the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, Sky and many other national and international satellite and cable networks.

He also spent 20 years teaching in an audio engineering college in London where he wrote the music curriculum. In 2006 he set up Hotwired Music as a platform for his teaching methods. He has authored books on music creativity and hosted masterclasses on accelerated learning, piano improvisation and composition in the UK and around Europe.

Mat also works for the Ecole Des Mines, one of the top engineering and scientific universities in France, coaching students in creativity using music and divergent “out of the box” thinking.

A lifetime interest in how performance is affected by one’s belief mechanisms has led to Mat writing and leading different training workshops and programs for EM Lyon business school, the Chamber of Commerce in France and team led organisations and private business owners throughout the UK, Amsterdam, Jersey and Berlin.

You can read more about Mat, in our blog here.

Brandon Myers is a music entrepreneur and founder of Marmalade. Originally from outside Washington, DC in the US, Brandon has settled in London collaborating with artists in the UK, US and Australia.

He has innovated the term artist manager, to now calling his role an Artist Vision Partner, which resembles the work on a more direct basis.

Marmalade partners with artists and producers on artist development, music distribution (label), and publishing. Its purpose is to help artists make a change in the world. Supporting and partnering with artists through creative and strategic development, to grow their audience, network, identity, and place in the industry. Marmalade is there to cut through the noise, so emerging musicians have a chance to move to the front and be heard. 

Brandon works with artists and producers Michael Sebastian, rallycap / Michael Andrew, Paulina, YAZ, Venice Heath, and Lukr. All have a deeper purpose in making the world a better place.

Learn more about Brandon Myers on his website.

Follow him on social media: Instagram | LinkedIn | Marmalade Website | Marmalade Beacons

Jorge Mejia is President & CEO for Sony Music Publishing Latin America and US Latin. A role in which he is responsible for Sony Music Publishing’s operations across Latin America and the US Latin market, with offices in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Miami.

During his tenure at Sony Music Publishing, Jorge has been instrumental in guiding Sony Music Publishing Latin to become the leading music publisher in the Latin industry, with a record-setting 19 ASCAP Latin Publisher of the Year wins, multiple Billboard Publishing Corporation of the Year, BMI Latin Publisher of the Year, and SESAC Publisher of the Year awards. In 2016, Sony Music Publishing became the first Latin publisher to win the ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC Publisher of the Year awards in a single year, the ‘Triple Crown of Publishing’, a feat repeated in 2017 and 2018. Sony Music Publishing owns or administers over 3 million copyrights by such artists as The Beatles, Ed Sheeran, Camilo, Maluma, Daddy Yankee, Nicky Jam, Shakira and Bruce Springsteen, amongst others.

A Latin GRAMMY® nominated composer and a Steinway Artist, Jorge studied piano at the New World School of the Arts and the New England Conservatory of Music, and earned his Piano Performance degree from the University of Miami. His 2018 release An Open Book: ‘A Memoir in Music,’ went on to garner a Latin GRAMMY® nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. His latest release entitled If These Walls Could Talk, a composition for piano in three movements, came out in 2022 via Sony Music Latin. He is currently working on the orchestral version of this piece, which he will be recording with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Jorge sits on the advisory board of the University of Miami Frost School of Music and is on the board of the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has been named to the Billboard Latin Power Players list every year it has been published and most recently to the Hollywood Reporter Most Powerful Latin Players list. Jorge is based in Miami where he lives with his wife, two dogs, and a baby daughter.

Visit here for further information about Jorge.

Oli Morgan has always had music as a focal point in his life, writing and recording from a young age, going on to study creative music technology at university and music production thereafter. His mastering career began when he was appointed as the first full-time addition to the team at Fluid Mastering, which allowed him to develop his craft across projects for the likes of Blossoms, Gregory Porter, Princess Nokia, Seal and Englebert Humperdink.

While at Fluid, Oli found that the quick turnaround of stereo mastering didn’t allow him to fully enter the world created by a song. As he continued to produce and mix tracks for himself and others, he started to combine this with his formal mastering training and explore the world of stem mastering – a specialist process that allows greater control over the sonic balance of a track. At a personal level, stem mastering allowed Oli to get a deeper understanding of a song and really get to know the artist. Since beginning to offer the service, Oli has found his home in post-production and worked on releases as varied as black metal pioneers Venom’s latest offering to the introductory release of pop artist Alexina.

In his role at Abbey Road, Oli combines traditional mastering with expertise in stem mastering. With stem mastering, Oli is not only able to shape the overall tonal balance of a track, but he can go even deeper into each component part to help achieve an even better result. On his days away from Abbey Road, Oli enjoys writing and producing material for himself and with other artists.

Raz Olsher is a London-based music producer, songwriter and composer. He works out of Fossil Studios, which he founded in 2009 in Hackney. Raz workes with different artists in different genres like acid jazz, hip hop, soul, electronic, soul and house. He has worked with an array of artists including Gilles Peterson, Lemar, Nathaniel Rateliff, Krust, MJ Cole, Basement Jaxx and Sam Lee. In 2012, he topped the UK charts with Sam & The Womp – Bom Bom, exceeding one million sales worldwide.

Raz is also known on the live dance music circuit, most recently through his live house music collective, aptly named Bassically who craft sophisticated electronic dance music originally programmed by machines using purely live instrumentation. Prior to this, Olsher lead another similar conceptual act named Zej; a live duo creating innovative performances through the use of technology and musical instruments covering genres such as Dubstep, Jungle, House and Electro. They were awarded the BBC Radio 1 New Talent Award for these performances.

Alongside music production, Raz has written for feature length films and documentaries. These include ‘The Last Ten’, ‘The Ninth Cloud’ which was set and filmed in East London and starred French actor Jean Hugh Anglade (Killing Joe/ Nikita) and Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs/ Kill Bill) & ‘Not Ever’ starring Emilia Fox (The Pianist) featuring original music from Roger O’Donnell (The Cure).

His guest lecturers cover subjects such as the development of his career and production analysis.

Alan Parsons is an audio engineer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He had dabbled with live performance in his late teens as a folk/blues acoustic player and as a lead guitarist with a blues band in the late sixties in London. But as soon as he landed a job at Abbey Road Studios at 19, it became clear that the world of sound recording was to dominate his career.

He worked as an assistant engineer on the last two albums by The Beatles and after he qualified as a fully-fledged recording engineer, he went on to work with Paul McCartney and The Hollies among many others. But his contribution as an engineer on Pink Floyd’s classic Dark Side OF The Moon got him world attention.

Alan went on to establish his own group, the Alan Parsons Project, and his subsequent solo recordings, which have also been very successful.

Alan has received a large number of awards including eleven Grammy nominations, The Les Paul Award in 1995 and The Diva Hall Of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award in Munich, Germany in June 2012.

Geoff Pesche had his first footing in the music industry as a bike messenger for Tape One Studios before moving into the cutting room, which jump-started his career in sound engineering. He went on to work for some of the UK’s top studios including Utopia, Masterpiece and Townhouse Studios before joining Abbey Road Studios as a Mastering Engineer in 2006.

Geoff has mastered albums and singles for top artists including Gorillaz, Kate Nash, Coldplay, Basement Jaxx, Amy MacDonald, Kylie Minogue and Dizzee Rascal. He’s worked with Pulp, Page & Plant, Mike Oldfield, Kenny Thomas, M People, William Orbit, Aphex Twin, Therapy, The Drums, The Divine Comedy, Lily Allen and Blur among many others.

Infamously at Tape One Studios, Geoff cut the vinyl lacquers for the best selling 12″ record of all time – New Order’s iconic Blue Monday, as well as the platinum-selling Dire Straits album Brothers In Arms. He’s also responsible for cutting the most played radio record of all time, Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. Geoff hosts lectures in mastering in his room at Abbey Road for each of our classes. Find out more about the mysteries of mastering on our blog. 

Ray Pope joined Universal Music in September 2015 after studying popular and world music at Leeds University. As a musician and a musical graduate she always saw herself in a creative role in the industry. After working in front line label talent acquisition she realised she had found her ideal role – helping people to find their dream job in an industry that means so much to so many.

In her spare time Ray still performs regularly at Ronnie Scott’s and with a hip hop brass band called Brassroots which helps enhance her understanding of the world she is recruiting into.

Ray has given guest lecturers at Abbey Road Institute on topics such as CV writing, how to get into the music industry and how best to prepare for the world of work after graduating. Our students had the chance to ask her questions and gain advice on where to find the best jobs and what recruiters like Ray look for in a CV.

As a teenager, Paul Pritchard played guitar in bands in and around his hometown of Bristol and this introduced him to the art of recording. He saved up for a four-track cassette recorder and has never looked back. In 2007 Paul joined Abbey Road in a placement scheme from the Tonmeister course at the University of Surrey. After graduating in 2009, Paul was invited to become a permanent fixture at Abbey Road Studios.

Since then Paul worked as an assistant / pro tools engineer on a great number of projects across a wide range of genres. His credits include pop and rock sessions with, the Arctic Monkeys, Chas and Dave, Sting, Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams, Sigur Ros, Take That, Birdy, Elbow. He has also done live studio sessions with Paolo Nutini, Alt J, Blondie; film music sessions for Harry Potter, The Hobbit, Les Mis, Unbroken, San Andreas; and classical sessions with Villazon/Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Paul is now Senior Recordist at Abbey Road and works as both a recording and mixing engineer. He gives guest lectures on his experience and knowledge gained through his work at the worlds most famous recording studios. Watch an interview with Paul and Andrew Dudman on our blog.

Marcela Rada is a dynamic audio engineer who seamlessly blends expertise with innovation. Her diverse portfolio spans various music genres, showcasing her skills in recording, editing, and mixing for independent artists.  As well as an advanced audio engineer, Rada is also a well-regarded educator. She has taught at prominent institutions such as Algonquin College, Interlochen Centre for the Arts, Berklee College of Music and more. Rada has studied music for a number of years and has a Bachelor of Music and a Master’s degree in Music Production. She later went onto pursue her academic journey further, with a PhD at the University of Surrey on immersive audio.

Throughout her career, Rada has conducted panels, workshops, and masterclasses globally. Some locations include, the USA, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, and England. Marcela Rada is an influential professional in the music industry with an impressive portfolio of experiences. Other career highlights include her involvement in the curation of the Audio Engineering Society Online Convention, Berklee NYC Experience Innovation, the International Music Summit,  and XP Music Futures.

You can find out more about Rada’s work on her portfolio.

Ian Ramage started his music career in manufacturing & production, before finding his way into the business proper from a pressing plant into Polydor Records. He progressed through product management and marketing roles to Director of Marketing at EMI, working with Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, Diana Ross, to mention just a few.

He then made the move to publishing A&R, enjoying 12 years at BMG, then a further 2 at Sony ATV, working with a broad spectrum of artists and writers including; Coldplay, Keane, Richard Hawley, Neil Hannon, Feist, Elvis Costello, The Cure.

Ian serves as VP, repertoire & marketing, UK for BMG, working with a number of fine creative musicians including Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley, British Sea Power and Sparks. In his role at BMG, Ian ensures UK musicians get proper exposure to the US market.

Learn more about Ian in his interview on our blog.

Dr Claire Renfrew is a Chartered Psychologist, specialising in Music Psychology who has hands-on experience working with songwriters, composers, performers and musicians across the music industry and within academia.  After completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology she then went on to complete a Doctorate focusing on the musical identities and lived experiences of professional orchestral musicians. Claire has a particular interest in musical identities and the positive impact that music can have on individuals as she disseminates knowledge relating to the effect music can have on mental health and wellbeing.

As an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the British Psychological Society, Claire continues to teach Psychology and believes that music and communication (alongside health and wellbeing) are crucial elements to our sense of self. Claire has been teaching Psychology for over a decade and is also a mentor for females starting their professional journey in the music industry. Additionally, she is a Post-Doctoral Affiliate of the Music In Human and Social Development Research Group.

After completing her PhD, she moved to London to develop her career in the music and events industry while still undertaking consultancy work as a Psychologist. Claire started working at Abbey Road Studios as a Senior Events Manager in 2018 with a diverse portfolio of creative, corporate and educational events to her name. She began her events career in production and stage management at music festivals during her undergraduate degree and has worked with companies such as Warner Music, the Barbican, the London Jazz Festival and BAFTA.

Find out more about Claire on her website.

Ralph Salmins is one of the UK’s most sought-after session drummers. His huge list of credits includes Paul McCartney, James Brown, Quincy Jones, Bjork, Van Morrison, Madonna, Elton John, Tori Amos, Jeff Beck, Robbie Williams, Chaka Khan and Lady Gaga. 

Ralph has played on soundtracks for over 180 movies including Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban, Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Evita. His signature groove has made him the drummer of choice for producers and composers worldwide.

He shares his studio ‘The Bunker’ with award-winning producer Haydn Bendall. He records, composes, produces and teaches at ‘The Bunker’ where Georgie Fame, Hamish Stuart, Jocelyn Brown, Nick Mason, Billy Cobham, David Sanborn and Michael McDonald have all recorded.

A committed educator, Ralph is a Professor of Drum Kit at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and The Royal College of Music, London and gives masterclasses in the UK and internationally.

Marta Salogni is a Producer and Mixer Engineer based in London. She started out working as a live sound engineer in Brescia (Italy) for the local social centre and independent radio station Radio Onda D’Urto on a variety of gigs, festivals, and theatre productions.

After moving to London in 2010 she studied at Alchemea College of Audio Engineering, learning Pro Tools and then started assisting at Strongroom and Rak studios. During this time, she assisted David Wrench and with him worked on various projects including Frank Ocean, The xx, Goldfrapp, Sampha, FKA Twigs, Glass Animals and David Byrne. In 2018, she won Breakthrough Engineer of the Year at the MPG Awards, and in 2019 she engineered Grammy-nominated album ‘i,i’ by Bon Iver.

Marta now produces and mixes from her own studio in London Fields.  Some of the artists she’s worked with are  Björk, Sampha, M.I.A., Methyl Ethel, Holly Herndon, Shura, Alex Cameron, Planningtorock, Lafandwah, Yak and The Orielles. Find out more about Marta Salogni in this interview on our blog. 

Andrew Scheps is a Grammy-award winning mix engineer whose credits read like a who’s who of popular music. He mixed four tracks on Adele’s Grammy-winning album, 21, and engineered and mixed songs on Red Hot Chili Peppers albums I’m with You and Stadium Arcadium.   He has collaborated frequently with producer Rick Rubin. Scheps has worked with Jay-Z, U2, Justin Timberlake, Green Day, Metallica, and many others.

Andrew has developed two acclaimed signature plugins, the Scheps 73 and Scheps’ Omni Channel Strip for Waves.  He is also the owner of Tonequake Records.

During his masterclass with our students, Andrew walks our students through one of his masterful mixes revealing his techniques and workflow. His classes include an extensive Q&A which give the students the opportunity to dig into his wealth of experience and knowledge.   Read more on our blog with Andrew here

Ken Scott is a British record producer/engineer widely known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff Beck Group and many more. As a producer, Scott is noted for his work with David Bowie (on Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane and Pinups), Supertramp (Crime of the Century and Crisis? What Crisis?), Devo, Kansas, the Tubes, Ronnie Montrose on Gamma 1, Level 42, among many others.

Ken has received a Clio award and two Grammy nominations for best-engineered pop album. In 2010, he was presented a fellowship award by the Association of Professional Recording Services.

As well as his guest lectures at Abbey Road Institute he is also a senior lecturer at Leeds Beckett University specialising in production. 

Stephen Sedgwick is a Grammy-nominated mix engineer based at Studio 13 in West London, and best known for his work with Damon Albarn and Gorillaz. His career began in 2002 at London’s Pierce Rooms. It was at Pierce Rooms in 2004, while working on the second Gorillaz studio album Demon Days, where Stephen first met Damon Albarn. In 2006, Damon invited Stephen to work at Studio 13 and in 2010 he was appointed as Head Engineer.

Stephen has recorded and mixed each of Damon’s albums and music projects since 2010. He has received multiple Grammy nominations and has worked with artists including Amy Winehouse, Blur, Bobby Womack, Chaka Khan, De La Soul, Erykah Badu, Lana Del Rey, Lou Reed, Major Lazer, Massive Attack, Mura Masa, Rex Orange County, Snoop Dogg, The Clash, Tony Allen. Most recently he mixed Gorillaz latest project ‘Song Machine’ which was released to critical acclaim in 2020. Stephen talks about much of his work including the Gorillaz project during his masterclasses with our students. Find out more about our guest lecturers on our blog.

Nick Sheldon is a producer and writer who began his career at Sarm Studios in 2008, where he gained production and engineering credits on many records, most notably Jamiroquai’s Rock Dust Light Star album in 2010, Take That, Robbie Williams, Madonna, Shakira, Coldplay plus many more.

Nick also worked as a Label Manager for Calvin Harris’s Fly Eye label giving him valuable experience and insights into the business side of things, he then went on to work on his solo career as ‘Sheldon’ which has risen in success over the past 8 years. His achievements from this include, becoming a resident at Ministry of Sound from 2012 to 2016, a compilation album for Ministry of Sound gaining top 40 iTunes success worldwide, and touring the globe as a DJ, supporting Calvin Harris, Avicii, Tiesto, Swedish House Mafia to name a few.

After working with many different writers in 2019, credits which are due to arrive in late 2020 include, Kelly Rowland, Galantis, Don Diablo, Becky Hill, Disciples, Chris Malinchak, Kelli-Leigh, Wanyi, Medusa, Embody, Camen Cox, Karen Harding, Skunk Anansie, Tensnake, Tiggi Hawke, Jem Cooke, Leftwing & Kody feat Leo Stanard, Lova, Caitlyn Scarlett, Gary Barlow, Grammy-winning Victoria Horn and many more. Plus a new project with Grammy-winning Paul Harris named Pan!ck which has just signed to Ultra Records US. For more about Nick visit his Instagram.

Fraser T Smith is a multi-award-winning producer, songwriter and musician. He is one of the most in-demand creators in contemporary music today. He has co-written, mixed and produced 7 Number One singles in the UK. In addition to 2 Billboard Number One singles in the US, and contributed to 18 Number One albums. He has spent most of his career producing and songwriting for some of the biggest artists in the world. Some include Adele, Stormzy, Sam Smith, Florence and the Machine, Drake, Gorillaz, Kano, Dave and more. 

He released his debut album,12 Questions, in October 2020, under the moniker ‘Future Utopia.’ 12 Questions features some of Britain’s most vital and brilliant artists, including Stormzy, Dave, Kano, Ghetts, Bastille, Es Devlin, Simon Armitage and Idris Elba. The album discusses issues including faith, freedom, race, gender, wealth, equality and ecology – all born of Fraser’s anxieties about today’s world. 

Future Utopia returned in January 2023 with “We Were We Still Are.” It is the lead single from his forthcoming EP of the same name. The track features vocals from mesmerising spoken word artist, Kae Tempest. The second single, “Your Love,” features the ethereal, haunting vocal of Biig Piig. Followed by Future Utopia’s After Dark Remix of “Your Love” in April 2023. “This Time” (August 2023) also features on the EP – a track which showed Fraser taking centre stage showcasing his distinctive vocals for the first time. 

‘Django’s High,’ is the new album from Future Utopia and is a psychedelic body of work inspired by Spaghetti westerns and themes of escapism. The first three singles showcase Fraser’s versatility whilst managing to refine a distinctive Future Utopia sound.

PRE-ORDER THE NEW FUTURE UTOPIA ALBUM BY FRASER T SMITH NOW!

Marc Specter is a professional dialogue editor and software developer. He has been part of Emmy, Bafta and Royal Television Society award-winning sound teams. He is also the creator of Kraken Dialogue Editors Toolkit, a widely used and well regarded tool for various aspects of dialogue workflow for film and tv.  He has taught dialogue editing, workflow, and denoising on the course.

Mirek Stiles started working at Abbey Road Studios as a recording engineer in 1998, working on a diverse range of projects including The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Beatles Anthology, Muse, Kanye West, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Paul McCartney.

Today, Mirek runs the studio’s Audio Products department leading the development of software and hardware releases based on Abbey Road’s historic recording IP with partners Waves Audio and Chandler Limited. Mirek also sits on the board and is an advisor on the Abbey Road Red incubation programme and is currently exploring and experimenting with Spatial Audio over headphones, ambisonics, spatial microphone arrays and game engine workflow. Recent projects include collaborations with film and video game composer Stephen Barton, joint research with the University of York and the University of Huddersfield, chairing the Abbey Road Spatial Audio Forum, and bringing together members from gaming, broadcast, VR, music production and film.

Diane Wagg owns Deluxxe Management and Ideal Music Productions and is Ex-Chair of the Music Manager’s Forum (MMF UK). She’s managed the international careers of numerous artists, signing them to Major and Independent labels. She is a regular panellist on artist management and development and an assessor for music business degree courses.

Her roster has included Brit/Ivor nominated Triple Platinum act, Scouting for Girls, Beth Orton, Republica, Mike Scott (The Waterboys), Rialto, Touriste, Lockdown Project and Sunhouse.  Emerging artists include Cortney Dixon, Diives and Nik Lloyd.

Diane started out in A&R at EMI Records before working with Philip Lynott and Thin Lizzy. Prior to setting up her own artist management companies, she was the Director of record producer Tony Visconti’s (David Bowie, T.Rex, The Boomtown Rats) group of companies and managed Visconti’s Good Earth Recording Studios (now Dean Street Studios) in London.

Diane is a guest speaker at Abbey Road Institute and lectures on artist management and development within our music business module.

Multi award-winning Record Producer and Recording Engineer Peter Walsh has been the man behind the console for a mountain of hit records encompassing many different musical styles from around the world. Peter began his career at London’s Utopia Studios working with Stevie Wonder, The Tubes, Spandau Ballet and The Boomtown Rats amongst others.  After a breakthrough producing Simple Minds fifth album New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84), he went on to be one of the most in-demand producers of the 80’s working Peter Gabriel, The Church, and Scott Walker with whom he would go on to work with for over 30 years.  He has co-produced every Scott Walker release since 1984’s Climate Of Hunter.

In addition to his role as producer and engineer in the studio, Peter has been the man of choice for countless projects in the live performance arena. As well as producing, recording and mixing over 12 award-winning, multi-platinum selling live CDs and DVDs, Peter has enjoyed touring with Amnesty International, Peter Gabriel (Secret World Live), and has worked with Scott Walker as Sound Producer at The Royal Opera House, The Barbican Theatre, Sadler’s Wells and at the Festival Hall in London.

Peter regularly visits Abbey Road Insitute to talk about his career journey and to give our students tips about navigating the industry. He also runs practical mixing and guitar recording masterclasses. Peter’s infectious personality ensure that classes are always fun, inspiring not to mention insightful.

www.peterwalshmusic.com

Moritz Wanger is an award-winning composer, specialising in writing and producing bespoke music for film, television and games.

Since graduating with his Master’s Degree in Composing for Screen from the National Film and Television School, Moritz has scored numerous films, Royal Television Award-nominated programmes, documentaries, games and advertisements for the likes of Mercedes, Audi, DJI, Roald Dahl and luxury watchmakers Bremont. He has also been commissioned to produce work for labels such as Ninja Tune, Musicbed and BMG Germany.

Moritz’s films have both won and been nominated for a variety of awards, and have screened at film festivals around the world, including Sheffield Doc Fest, Canadian International Fashion Film Festival, Jackson Wild, Encounters Film Festival and Spark Animation. Besides his film work, he stays occupied writing music for a piano project he launched in late 2020 under the artist name Regnør.

Alongside his work for commercial clients, Moritz Wanger teaches music theory to our Music Production students. To find out more about his work, visit his website.

Jonas Westling is a Grammy-nominated Swedish born mixing and recording engineer based in London. He moved to London in 2004 to study at the Guitar Institute, where he initially had plans of pursuing a career as a studio musician. Following studying Jonas worked at Metropolis Studios as an assistant and engineer before going freelance, which he has done for the past 11 years.

Over his career, he has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry from Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Melanie C and James Arthur to Newton Faulkner and Gabrielle Aplin. Jonas has worked with major label artists as well as independent artists and believes having a good understanding of the music you’re mixing is the key element to consistently delivering professional sounding results. He received a Grammy nomination for vocal engineering/recording on Lady gaga’s track ‘Dance In the Dark’ which was on The Fame Monster album.

He says of his approach “Every song requires its own thorough process. Each track is unique and deserving of respect. It’s all about the emotional quality, energy, and vibe of the music that needs to shine, not the technical aspects, and I will do whatever is needed to serve that song. Getting people to connect with the song – that is the main goal. If they feel it – you’ve done your job!’

You can find out more about Jonas on his website.

Christian Wright started off in the copy rooms at Abbey Road Studios before he graduated to the role of Mastering Engineer. He has since gone on to master award-winning No.1 albums as well as soundtracks to No.1 films from both sides of the Atlantic.

Some of the biggest and respected names in music have had their albums mastered by Christian, including Ed Sheeran, Franz Ferdinand, Blur, Soft Hair, Kate Tempest, Bears Den, Keane, and Ben Frost. His skills in soundtrack production have been employed on the Oscar-winning Gravity (No.1 in the USA and UK) composed by Steven Price, two Harry Potter films and The Master – composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.

Christian’s musical interests aren’t limited to mastering. He still plays live in a band (performing at festivals like Secret Garden Party), records as a multi-instrumentalist, avidly collects analogue gear from synths to outboard, and regularly records and mixes tracks, making him truly involved and helping him understand every aspect of the music creation process.

Aamir Yaqub is a London based Producer, Grammy Award-winning engineer, and writer specialising in Hip-Hop, R&B, Soul and Pop music. Aamir’s sound bears heavy influence from his iconic idols and contemporary visionaries alike.

Aamir worked extensively at Metropolis Studios, London, where he collaborated with a number of respected Grammy Award-winning artists, producers and engineers. He has worked with high profile acts including Rihanna, David Guetta, Ne-Yo, Sia and Will.I.Am, as well as with major labels and brands.

As an artist, Aamir takes his influences from a variety of genres from Rock and Bollywood to Jazz and credits legends such as Stevie Wonder, Prince, Michael Jackson and Marvin Gaye as his main inspirations. Working in London, Aamir has supported local talent, not only as a producer but as a mentor as well, helping them to invent, brand and shape their musical personas and sound. His career is set to flourish; his innovation as a producer and energy as a songwriter, backed by his technical nous, continues to be recognised by some of the industries most prominent and visionary musicians and professionals.

Find out more about Aamir Yaqub and his mixing workshop for our students on our blog.

Martin Glover, known by his stage name Youth is a record producer and a founding member and bassist of Killing Joke and a member of the Fireman, along with Paul McCartney.

Youth is most famous for being the bass player in Killing Joke. In 1989, Youth and Alex Paterson started the WAU! Mr. Modo label. In the early nineties, Youth formed techno and house music duo Blue Pearl together with American singer Durga McBroom. They scored a handful of hit singles including their blue vinyl debut “Naked in the Rain“, which reached No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart.

Youth’s Butterfly Records label has produced artists such as Take That, Wet Wet Wet, Tom Jones, The Orb, System 7, Maria McKee and Heather Nova. Youth was the co-producer of The Verve‘s Urban Hymns and Dolores O’Riordan‘s ‘Are You Listening?’. He has worked, produced and remixed with many artists including Kate Bush, Guns N’ Roses, Primal Scream, Embrace, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Crowded House, U2, Bananarama, INXS, Depeche Mode,  Pink Floyd and The Charlatans.

He is credited with founding the first psychedelic trance record label, Dragonfly Records, as well as the Liquid Sound Design and Kamaflage Records labels. Youth has received numerous awards over the years including Soundedits’s The Man with the Golden Ear Award and the PPL Music Producers Guild Lifetime Achievement award.