Founder-Director
Em Marshall read Greats at Oxford, and currently devotes all her energies to making the EMF a successful enterprise. With considerable festival experience gained through work at the Three Choirs Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival, Em also spent over six years with Thames Publishing, and was later Concert Assistant for the concert promoter firm, Music at Oxford. When not working on the EMF, Em’s attachment to English music continues through her involvement with a number of British composer societies, primarily that of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and the Bantock Society, of both of which she is the Chairman. She has also been the Secretary of the Association of English Singers & Speakers and the Peter Warlock Society, as well as Head of Publicity for the Elgar Society. She is regularly in print, writing mainly about music in the form of articles, reviews and programme notes, but is also a freelance journalist covering travel, theatre, literature, and fine foods and wines. She enjoys an eclectic range of interests – from travel (exploring the Himalayas or getting lost in Moroccan desert towns and being rescued by Berber merchants) through to Ancient Indian philosophy. Rare moments of leisure see her wandering the hills or scrambling around castles and ancient monuments with her Border Collie and Irish Wolfhound. She has been involved in the promotion of English music since the age of 15 and is determined to see it fully appreciated. Her book on British composers and the landscape (Music in the Landscape), published by Robert Hale, is now available; to order a copy, please visit the Marketplace.