Until recently, Brenda was Joint Head of Accompaniment at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester where she was part of the staff accompaniment team for 25 years alongside an active performing career. She is now a freelance accompanist and recitalist based in Norfolk in the East of England.
Brenda has a great passion for working with young people through her role as an accompanist – nurturing and helping them to develop as performers and musicians. She is currently Accompanist-in-Residence on the Young Talents Programme at Britten Pears Arts in Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh as well as the Making Musicians programme in Norwich. Pre-Covid, she regularly contributed to programmes for young talented instrumentalists in Norway offering projects involving rehearsing, coaching and giving performance skills classes and recitals.
Her role at Chetham’s saw her frequently accompanying young musicians in national and international competitions, (BBC Young Musician, Yehudi Menuhin Competition, Royal Overseas League, Sibelius Competition, Finland, Davina van Wely, Holland) as well as in masterclasses with many renowned international artists.
She has a great love of Norway and Norwegian culture and has performed in many of Norway and Sweden’s major festivals over the last 30 years, touring extensively through both countries, collaborating with many Scandinavian musicians. In 2014 she spent a year as Head of Accompaniment at the Barratt Due Institute in Oslo and has also worked as a visiting accompanist at the Norwegian State Academy of Music. She is a regular resident accompanist at Valdres Sommersymfoni Festival and Summer School.
As a recitalist, performances have taken her to major venues and festivals throughout the UK, Europe, Los Angeles and New York collaborating with many singers and instrumentalists. She has given live broadcasts on Classic FM, BBC Radio 3 and NRK radio and has made 3 CD recordings, all recorded on historical pianos from the collection at Finchcocks Museum. Her Simax recording of the Haydn trios for flute, cello and piano was chosen as 'Record of the Month' by the German Music Journal "Alte Musik Aktuel’.
Brenda read music at Oxford University – specialising in 19th century music – and then continued at the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied piano with David Parkhouse and accompaniment with Robert Sutherland and was awarded the Ellen Marie Curtis Prize for her interpretations of Haydn and Mozart.