BIOGRAPHIES ADJUDICATORS
Mervyn Cousins [England]
Bernie Sherlock [Ireland]
Mervyn currently combines his post as Deputy Chief Examiner of ABRSM, the UK’s largest music education body, with freelance choral directing and other work in music education. Having been organ scholar at the Royal Holloway College, London, he then held a similar position at St Bride’s Church in the city before moving to St James’, Sussex Gardens as Organist. Mervyn was appointed as Assistant Director of Music at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in 1987. He became Director of Music there in 1993 and was also Chorus Master of the Bury St Edmunds Festival Chorus.
Bernie Sherlock is a leading choral conductor. She has won international conducting prizes in Finland, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Slovenia and Ireland, and her adjudication and workshop engagements have taken her around Europe and to the US, Canada and China.
Director of Music at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral from 1997 until 2003, Mervyn was also Organist to the University of Liverpool during that time. He has directed choirs and given recitals in many parts of the world as well as adjudicating at festivals in several countries - with each of his cathedral choirs receiving wide critical acclaim for their recordings and live performances. Mervyn moved to Wales as Music Director of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in September 2003, becoming its Executive Director in 2008. He moved from the festival in 2011, then combining work for Mid Wales Opera and in Merseyside schools with examining at home and abroad; before taking up his present post in November 2015. Other interests include walking, bird-watching and, increasingly, photography - and he lives with his wife Margaret on the Welsh-English border with their three-legged cat Missie!
Bernie studied conducting with Ildiko HerbolyKocsar and Peter Erdei at the Liszt Academy in Hungary, and with Gerhard Markson in Dublin. Following her BA in music from Trinity College Dublin she earned Masters and Doctorate degrees in conducting from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and the Royal Irish Academy of Music/DCU respectively. Bernie is the founder-conductor of the international award-winning chamber choir New Dublin Voices, critically acclaimed for its innovative concert programming and its work in television, radio and recording. The choir has a strong record at Europe’s leading competitions, recently winning first prize at the International Competition of the 2019 Derry International Choir Festival, first prize in the mixed choir competition at the 2018 Béla Bartók International Choir Competition in Hungary, and the Grand Prix at the 2017 International Baltic Sea Choir Competition in Latvia. Among many other prizes, New Dublin Voices has previously come first in the international class at the Cork International Choral Festival (2015), the Grand Prix at Concoroso Polifonico in Arezzo (2013), all six prizes at the 2011 International Choir Contest of Maasmechelen in Belgium, and the Grand Prix at the 2009 Budapest International Choir Competition. Bernie has extensive experience directing a wide range of choirs, including twelve years as Musical
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