About Ian
Hi, and thanks for visiting my website and learning more about what I do!
I guess I’m just a “singing nerd” at the end of the day! I love singing, I love listening to other people sing and I love it when people start to truly express themselves through their singing voices with power, presence and confidence.
I’ve been singing all my life. I started out singing in a very good, local High Anglican church choir at the age of 7 that exposed me to harmony and counterpoint, Requiems and Latin - all whilst wearing robes and a frilly ruff! I managed to obtain my Bishops’ Chorister Award just before my voice broke, before moving to the Alto and then finally the Tenor sections of the choir. At this stage my ear was drifting away from classical choral singing and more towards Soul, RnB and Gospel (thanks Whoopi Goldberg and Sister Act!)
As a Gospel Singer, I sang with the Liverpool Love & Joy Gospel Choir for many years, touring all over the country from small town halls to football stadia - I had truly fallen in love with this very expressive and emotive art form, and eventually set up Sanctified Gospel Choir who went on to win a Gospel Entertainment & Music (GEM) Award in 2005.
I managed to gain a place to study music at the prestigious Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) which was set up by former-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, and graduated with honours in 2003. During my time studying at LIPA, I had the opportunity to sing and perform with a vast array of talented artists and performers and fell into providing backing vocals for a number of different main-stream artists of the time.
Having discovered over time that I really enjoyed singing backing vocals, was happier with my back to an audience directing as opposed to standing in the spotlight, it was no surprise to me that I ended up gravitating towards teaching singing as a side hustle. And that’s what it was, a side hustle, I had no clue what I was doing and that’s when I fortunately discovered the Speech Level Singing methodology or SLS.
Training in the Speech Level Singing (SLS) teaching methodology, studying under world renowned teachers such as Seth Riggs, Dave Stroud, Wendy Parr, John Henny, Dean Kaelin, Greg Enriquez, Jeffrey Skouson and Kathy Kennedy, coincided with my being invited to Lecture in Gospel and A Cappella at my former university, LIPA. Upon completion of my initial SLS training, I was then also invited to Lecture in Vocals at LIPA and taught there for 12 years in total, teaching one-to-one and group singing classes to the students on the Music, Acting and Dance degree and foundation level courses.
After achieving Level 3 status within the SLS organisation, I wanted to broaden out my knowledge of vocal pedagogy, vocal harmonics and acoustics, and along with a number of other teachers from around the world came together under the guidance of Dave Stroud to form what is now known as Vocology in Practice or ViP.
Shortly after helping to found ViP, where I served as Education Director for a year, I obtained my MA in Music from the University of Salford, where I focussed my studies on the Psychology of Performance and the condition, "Adophobia" (literally the Fear of Singing), on which I wrote extensively for my thesis.
I work hard to keep myself informed on the latest pedagogical research and developments within in the world of vocal health and how to teach to ensure that I can provide the very best for my clients. I’ve also recently started training in Laryngeal Massage so that I can bring this highly beneficial manual therapy to the my clients.
Highlights of my career to date include being a Lecturer in Singing at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) and helping to establish and teach on the singing program on the BA(hons) in Musical Theatre at the Institute of the Arts Barcelona. I have also been fortunate to train voices at Rare Studios in Liverpool. I arranged and directed the backing choir on the 2012 UK Christmas No.1 song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" on behalf of the Justice Collective, for which I was awarded a Gold Disc.
Aside from my teaching studio, I am the choral director for the Liverpool Community Choir, training the lead voices for the Birkenhead Operatic Society and have recently started training voices for the Pro Vocal Artist artist development program.
Over the last ten years or so, my career has taken me down the path of teacher training and I am fortunate to be one of the directors of Modern Vocal Training (MVT). I absolutely love training new teachers; I find it to be really invigorating, plus it keeps me accountable and makes sure that I’m keeping abreast of the latest developments in my field.
