Helena Braithwaite MBE
Helena Braithwaite was born in Pontarddulais and educated in Gowerton Girls’ Grammar School. She attended Cardiff University where she graduated with a B.A Honours Music degree and an MA in 20th Century Music. In her youth Helena was principal cellist with the Glamorgan Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Wales and continued to play semi-professionally for many years. Her teaching career included the posts of Head of Music at Cowbridge and Cardiff High Schools and Lecturer in charge of the Post-graduate Certificate of Education (Music) and post-graduate music education research at University College Cardiff. While at the University she served on the supervisory panel of the National Federation for Education Research and was also a member of the Schools’ Council Examination A level Regulatory Board for Music.
In 1979 she became Music Adviser for South Glamorgan and during the next fourteen years initiated many curriculum changes. She expanded the instrumental services, developing five orchestras, five brass bands and two wind bands, also establishing jazz and steel pan ensembles. Helena founded the County’s three choirs catering for young people from 9 to 21 years of age. She directed the South Glamorgan Youth Choir and over the next fourteen years built this group into one of the premier youth choirs in the UK. In 1988 the Choir won the Youth Choir competition in Llangollen and in 1991 became the British Choir of the Year at the National Choral Competition in the Festival Hall, London. During her years as Music Adviser the County won four major awards and two merit awards from the National Association of County Councils and Local Authorities for the most outstanding county music provision in Great Britain.
As well as directing the South Glamorgan Youth choir from 1979 to 1993, she has directed the internationally renowned Cardiff Ardwyn Singers for thirty-six years from 1969 to 2005. The ‘Ardwyn’ has been successful in competition winning the chief choral competition at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod and the International Choral Festival in Cork, Ireland. In 1996 the choir was awarded the gold medal of the British Federation of Music Festivals. She has directed both choirs in prestigious venues in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, America, Canada, Israel, Malta, the West Indies and South Africa. Helena has adjudicated at both the National and Urdd Eisteddfodau and in music festivals throughout Wales. Throughout her career Helena has been involved in curriculum and music development at a national level. She served on the Welsh Joint Education panel that devised the new GCSE syllabus and examination and was instrumental, as Chairman of the Welsh Music Advisers’ Association, in adapting and developing the National Curriculum for Music for Wales. Helena also represented Wales on the steering committee of the British Music Advisers’ National Association. Until 1993 she was a member of the Board of the Welsh National Opera and chaired its Education Committee. From 1993 to 1996 she chaired the arts panel of the Southeast region of the Arts Council of Wales. Helena was appointed as the external examiner for the MA in Music Education at Trinity College, London in 1998 and was also an assessor for the Performing Right Society’s `Composers in Schools’ scheme. She is a board member and trustee of many Welsh arts organisations and ensembles including the Vale of Glamorgan Contemporary Music Festival, the Wales Millennium Centre and Sinffonia Cymru, an orchestra whose members are outstanding young instrumentalists just completing their conservatoire training.
From 1993 to 1998 Helena held the post of the first Education and Community Officer to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and devised and organised projects with composers and BBC players in schools and community centres throughout Wales. She also worked with the education department of the BBC on radio and television music education programmes and from 1998 to 2003 lectured in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Helena now works on a free-lance basis. She organises education projects throughout Wales and is involved with various BBC programmes and projects.
In 1993 the Guild for the Promotion of Welsh Music awarded Helena the John Edwards Memorial Award for her outstanding contribution to Welsh music and music education and in 1998 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours List for her services to Welsh music. In 2001 she became a Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
