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Trustees & Management
Management
Tom Elliott graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 1998 and immediately embarked on a busy career as a freelance violinist. After playing with many of the country's leading orchestras, he was made a member of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 2001.
It became clear to him that once the second of his four children were born, the frantic international touring schedule of the orchestra was not well suited to family life. Tom made the decision to leave his playing career behind and concentrated on teaching and soon after, he founded Glossop Music Festival in 2014. The experience of staging and organising high-quality music events created a path for him into full-time management, and he was given the opportunity to run the Northern Chamber Orchestra in Manchester, which he did until he moved with his family to Kent in 2018, where he now divides his time between running Bridgepoint Music, teaching classroom music, giving one to one violin lessons and being Engagement Manager for Hastings International Piano Competition.
Our Trustees
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Simon Roberts
Chair of Trustees
Simon’s musical career was short. He was fortunate enough on two occasions to sing with the choir of King’s College, Cambridge but his great regret is that stopped learning the violin and piano without attaining any real ability. He hopes that his involvement with Bridgepoint Music can help create more opportunities for young people to explore and engage with classical music.When he’s not dreaming of being able to play Bach or Schubert’s piano music, Simon is a business anthropologist and founder of Stripe Partners, a strategy consultancy. His book, The Power of Not Thinking: How Our Bodies Learn and Why We Should Trust Them, was published in 2020.
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Amanda Powell
Trustee
Amanda’s career was spent primarily working in recruitment and executive search before moving into the venture capitalist and finance world. Her love of the arts stemmed from her time on stage working in amateur dramatic productions. She has a huge passion for theatre and music and is a patron of The Old Vic.
As a Trustee, Amanda brings huge enthusiasm to the role and hopes that her appreciation and love of music will inspire her to help support Bridgepoint Music exposure as it reaches out to new audiences in Kent and Sussex. Based in Kent with her family, it is now time to immerse herself back into supporting the arts and being as useful as possible.
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Deborah Katis
Trustee
After ten years as a marketing executive for Warner Bros Films, Debbie decided to leave the bright lights of Leicester Square for a more peaceful existence in rural Kent. Raising three children occupied the next chapter before joining the local prep school, Saint Ronan’s, in 2002 initially as a teaching assistant. Training on the job proved successful and she became a class teacher and Deputy Head of the Nursery and Pre-Prep.
Debbie retired from teaching in 2011 but, unable to resist the lure of music education, she returned to Saint Ronan's in 2013 as Music Administrator and now runs the music department with a team of 20 visiting music teachers, one of whom is Tom Elliott.