Brian Sawyer - building maintenance

On Monday 9th January 2012. Brian passed away. He had been with us for twenty years. We have all lost a good friend and will miss him more than words can say.

Phil McDonnell - director

Phil created the Institute and has a background in both the music industry and vocational training. As an artist and songwriter he has had many record releases, TV and radio appearances. Phil has been a manager in music retail and owned his own recording studios and promotional companies. He is national administrative director for the 2337 and 2338 suite of City & Guilds qualifications (which he was instrumental in developing) and is responsible for the New Deal for Musicians music programmes in Greater London and the East of England.

Email philmcdonnell@imthurricane.org

Robbie Stacey - web design lecturer/assessor

Robbie runs a successful web design business. He has a wide range of business customers. We are extremely lucky that he enjoys teaching and comes and teaches once or twice a week for us. Visit his company site at www.hi-resdesign.com

Email robbiestacey@imthurricane.org

Tim Martin - web design apprentice assessor

Tim’s industry background is in campaign, corporate & editorial publishing (Senior Typographer - Penguin Books) and he has run and taught many art & design courses. He was previously a Senior Lecturer at Reading College (Prepress, Interdisciplinary & Multimedia Design) and a Head of Department at De Montfort University (Design Management & Communication). Tim has a BA in Industrial Design (Birmingham) and a masters in Design Research (Royal College of Art) and his current research interests include history of technology, type and social innovation.

Email timmartin@imthurricane.org

Maxine Gordon - video lecturer and assessor

Trained as a broadcast journalist with BBC Radio and LWT before enjoying a brief stint working for record companies in Artist Relations, which entailed throwing purple petals at the feet of Whitney Houston and buying KFC for the Wu Tang Clan.

Primarily worked in TV production, producing documentaries (The Hip Hop Years – BAFTA-nominated) and helping to developing format programmes (Faking It). A considerable amount of production experience was obtained in the States, making music documentaries for Channel Four Television (Pump Up The Volume), as well as filming & producing an independent documentary film about a close friend who joins a cult (shown on C4).

After an even briefer stint working as a music journalist for the Top of the Pops website, there was a move into music television, establishing and producing a new live music show for the BBC (Trevor Nelson’s Urban Choice) before returning to her documentary background to produce a documentary for the BBC (The Story of Jamaican Music). Also worked in the BBC’s News & Current Affairs department helping to develop news-based programming, as well as to produce a documentary on football (The Colour of Football).

Decided to leave ‘sunny’ England to produce a COPS-style show in the States for Granada Television, which entailed donning a bulletproof vest everyday for two years, whilst filming on the ‘less sunny’ streets of Detroit.

Returning to the UK, led to qualifying to become a teacher, teaching media and film courses in schools and colleges, whilst also obtaining training at the National Film & TV School in Script Development. Currently assisting a film production company to develop feature scripts as well as writing film scripts.

Email maxinegordon@imthurricane.org

Carl Marsh - Creative Apprentice assessor

Carl was a founder-member of influential art-rockers Shriekback, recording four albums and touring extensively with them in the 80s as writer, guitarist, singer and co-producer. He then recorded a solo album for Polydor before moving to New York, where he was signed to Atlantic Records as Happyhead. He now writes with various artists and is a partner in Big & Clever, a production company making music for commercials, TV and libraries. He also freelances in PR and advertising. Carl started at IMT as a Sound Engineering lecturer before moving to the New Deal for Musicians where he is now Team Leader for the Music Industry Provision.

Email carlmarsh@imthurricane.org

Ben Henderson - head of film making

Ben currently produces at Black Valve Studios in Surrey as well as being the director of Bump & Thumper Recording Co. The bump and Thumper group are a collective of artists, engineers, and producers working together to provide professional services to the music industry.

Formerly a member of the internationally successful band BOA, Ben was signed with Polystar in Japan and has had Album and Single releases in Japan, South East Asia, the USA and the UK. The song "Duvet" was used as the theme tune for "Lain", the Japanese Manga anime, and remixed by D.J. Wasai on the"Lain- Serial Experiments" Album. Pioneer USA have recently released the Album "Twilight" in the United States, amalgamating Tracks from the "Tall Snake" E.P., which was originally released in Japan.

Ben's regularly performs with his current band Moth, and also sound engineers at various live venues in the UK. Moth have performed to raise funds for the London City Mission, Oxygen, and Youth initiatives.

Email benhenderson@imthurricane.org

Mark Narayn - head of creative apprenticeships and sound engineering

Mark has been with the Institute since it began, in 1989.

His varied career has included: running his own business, Musical Director for the 'Vic Reeves Big Night Out', production of TV commercials, BBC film sound recordist, audio consultancy, drumming and performing in a host of bands and loads of sound engineering and production work.

Email marknarayn@imthurricane.org

Roisin Orr - head administrator

Roisin is one of the few truly indispensable members of our team. She oversees all our administrative processes, and is a much loved by our staff and those of our partner organisations.

If you have a question about the paperwork, she's the one to ask!

Email info@imthurricane.org

Matt Ottewill - quality assurance officer and head of digital apprenticeships /web design

Matt has a music, graphics and multimedia industry background which encompasses composition and record production (he has worked with Precious Wilson, Jeb Nichols, Mica Paris, Carol Thompson, and Incognito among others), CDROM design and web site development (this is one of his sites).

Since completing a BA in Music Technology and a masters degree in Multimedia, Matt has lectured at Greenwich University, Rose Bruford College and Kingston University, and presented papers at The Royal College of Music and Doncaster University among others.

Visit his personal site at www.mattottewill.com and research site at www.planetoftunes.com

Email mattottewill@imthurricane.org

Dan Maitland - mentor and more ...

Careers lecturing and mentoring. Music outreach workshops. Student and partner recruitment. Commercial Writing. Event management. Digital and real world marketing and PR.

Dan released his debut solo album, Rumours Of A Nice Day, on Folkwit records in 2008 and got some nice reviews, especially from his friend Rose – who gave him genius rights to her larder (no, missus, behave!).

He is currently recording two new albums, having recovered from last one via the replenishing powers of Golf, Poker and comforting friends.

He has written two novels, one for children and a rather nasty one for adults, plus a miserable-ist’s travelogue – called the Black Diary. His poetry has been featured on Sky TV and in a number of UK magazines, and was shortlisted in national poetry competitions, including Faber and Faber. His words have been set by the North Sea Radio Orchestra and a number of other artists, including: Melanie Blatt, Nick Homes and members of the Stereo MC’s. He has a bumper poetry collection, ‘Even Bad Dogs do Good Things’ on sale now at a few good Book shops and at gigs. He has just finished his existential, quantum fantasy friend novella ‘Things Forgotten’ and is currently fighting off all major publishing houses.
Daniel played for ten years with soul legend Geno Washington, and worked in a number of other writing and performing projects – including the RSC and The Foundations.

He has broken 7 golf clubs in anger reaching his 18 handicap, and walked away in a sulk from most poker venues in London. He aims to be the first golfer to win the seniors tour who has never played professionally, and is currently fiddling around with his bottom feeder’s poker book, ‘ Bad Beats and All ins – Confessions of an apprentice Poker Brat.’ Someone has to do it.

Email danielmaitland@imthurricane.org