Professor Helena Gaunt

National Teaching Fellow 2009 Dr. Helena Gaunt is the Assistant Principal (Research and Academic Development) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. A professional oboist, her passion as a teacher is in the field of instrumental and vocal tuition. Helena has been an oboe professor at the Guildhall for eighteen years. One student remarked: "... the aspect of Helena's teaching for which I feel most grateful was her sensitivity to me as an artist in my own right. I have never known her to force a musical (or indeed technical) idea on me, but rather she makes suggestions that we then explore together. ... this was a vital part of my development into a confident and most importantly unique musician." A particular quest for Helena, alongside improving her own work as a one-to-one teacher, is to open up this mode of teaching and learning, which operates behind closed doors but dominates professional music training, to research and development. Helena has been at the forefront of generating the first accredited professional development opportunities for instrumental/vocal teachers in Higher Education in the UK, through a collaborative partnership with the Institute of Education. One student commented: "This was everything I would look for in a course to improve one-to-one teaching." Helena is also pioneering an interactive international programme at the invitation of the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC), bringing teachers from conservatoires across Europe together to reflect on practice, engage with research evidence and build development strategies in their own institutions. This is the first initiative of its kind in a field which is particularly resistant to change and has been characterised by teachers who are expert performers but who have no training as teachers. Helena has published widely on aspects of instrumental and vocal learning and is a member of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Music Education. She is also the deputy chair of a new Forum on Instrumental Teaching for the International Society of Music Education.