Kathryn Jourdan

Having studied Music at Clare College, Cambridge Kathryn completed postgraduate studies in viola and chamber music at the Royal Northern College of Music. After five years in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle’s leadership, she played for several years in a London-based string quartet, training and then practising in the meantime as a secondary music teacher back in Cambridge.

Kathryn moved to Edinburgh in 1998 and freelances as a viola player, mainly with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. For fourteen years she taught academic music, viola and chamber music at St Mary’s Music School, setting up a working group with a small group of committed alumni to reimagine how a twenty-first century specialist school in the western art music tradition might nurture hospitable and outward-looking young musicians.

In 2015 she completed a PhD supervised by John Finney at Cambridge University, in the field of the Philosophy of Music Education. Kathryn has been a member of the editorial boards of both the British and International Journals of Music Education, and has given lectures at Edinburgh University, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the University of Illinois. She was a board member of Sistema Scotland for nine years where she chaired the music committee. During Nicola Benedetti’s first year as Director of the Edinburgh Festival Kathryn worked closely with her as her consultant in research and programme development.

In 2021 Kathryn set up the Music Hub in Stockbridge with community music practitioner Clea Friend. Two concert series run alongside an all-age cello choir, one-to-one sessions for young adults with complex needs, creative music-making in the local primary school and inclusive larger scale musical events bringing together diverse members of the local community.