Sherborne
Summer School of Music
2024
Wind Ensemble : Biographies
Mark Heron is a Scottish conductor noted for dynamic and well-rehearsed performances of an unusually wide repertoire.
He appears regularly with major orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish, Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Manchester Camerata, Psappha and Meininger Hofkapelle. He is Music Director of the Nottingham Philharmonic and as Professor and Head of Conducting at the RNCM works regularly with all the College’s orchestras and ensembles.
Mark has vast expertise in contemporary music and has collaborated with many of the greatest living composers. He has recorded more than twenty CDs with the RNCM Wind Orchestra and Manchester Camerata on labels such as Chandos, Naxos, NMC, ASC and Polyphonic.
Alongside his conducting activities, Mark has an international reputation as a conducting teacher. Apart from leading the RNCM's world-renowned conducting programmes, he is a visiting professor to the Royal Air Force and is frequently invited to teach at masterclasses all over the world.
Bjørn Sagstad is Artistic Director of the Military Wind Bands in Norway, professor at the Academy of Music (FHNW) in Basel Switzerland and an associate Professor at the University of Bergen (Grieg Academy of Music).
Bjørn undertook his formal training at the Royal Northern College of Music, the Grieg Academy of Music in Norway and the University of Tromsø and Trondheim/NTNU in Norway. He has worked with symphony orchestras in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Hong Kong and the USA and with all the professional military wind ensembles in Scandinavia along with the Royal Marine Band in Holland and the Royal Marines in Portsmouth UK. He was Chief Conductor of several orchestras and wind ensembles including the Prinsen Brass Ensemble (Denmark), the Kristiansund Symphony Orchestra and Opera (Norway), the Norwegian Navy Band and the Kristiansund Wind Ensemble.
He is a sort-after guest conductor and conducting lecturer giving masterclasses all over the world. His repertoire is extensive and includes orchestral, choral, music theatre, opera and ballet as well as specialising in contemporary music. He has made several recordings and been responsible for the premieres of a large number of new works. Bjørn is currently directing a five-year mentoring programme for young conductors sponsored by Dextra Musica and the Norwegian Band Federation.
Agata Zając is a Polish symphonic and opera conductor. She started her musical path as a violinist, and then completed her conducting studies at the Poznań Academy of Music in Poland. In the last artistic season, Agata was the Mills Williams Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
Agata is a former Resident Conductor of the Toruń Symphony Orchestra (2020/21) and Sudeten Philharmonic Orchestra (2021/22) in Poland. She has already worked with many international orchestras, including BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Britten Sinfonia, Grazer Philharmoniker, Orchestre national de Metz, Malmö Opera, Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Athens Philharmonia, NOSPR in Katowice, Poznań Philharmonic, Opole Philharmonic and Zielona Góra Philharmonic. From 2018 to 2019, she was an assistant conductor in Warsaw Chamber Opera and worked on the premieres of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serai, Idomeneo and Halka of Stanislaw Moniuszko.
Agata participated in many conducting masterclasses and was mentored by prominent teachers such as Paavo Järvi, Jorma Panula, Johannes Schlaefli, Mark Heron, Peter Eötvös, Antony Hermus, Marin Alsop, and Peter Eötvös. She spent the last summer at the Tanglewood Music Festival as a Conducting Fellow working under the guidance of Andris Nelsons, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Agata was also a student of the Tonhalle Conductors’ Academy 2022/23, Gstaad Conducting Academy 2021 and NOSPR Conducting Academy 2021.
She was invited to many international competitions and auditions – at the beginning of 2023 she was awarded 2nd prize and audience vote at the Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition. Moreover, she received special distinctions at the Malta International Conducting Masterclass & Competition (2018) and International Conducting Competition Città di Brescia (2021). She also participated in the last Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, where she reached the semi-finals and had the opportunity to rehearse with London Symphony Orchestra. In 2018 Agata was awarded with a scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in Poland.
In the 2023/24 season Agata Zając is the Assistant Conductor of Ludovic Morlot in the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.