Gavin Henderson

Gavin Henderson spent six years at art school, finally as post-graduate in sculpture at the Slade, whilst maintaining a close involvement with music-making, mainly as a trumpeter. He was a pioneer in Performance Art. After a travelling scholarship to the USA, he returned to direct festivals  – notably the York Festival and Mystery Plays and the Brighton Festival, between which he was CEO of the Philharmonia Orchestra – with a Summer School synergy of his commissioning Peter Maxwell Davies first Symphony, dedicated to William Glock. For five years he directed the South Hill Park Arts Centre at Bracknell, where he built the Wilde Theatre, from which he came to Dartington, the directorship of which over-lapped with his being Principal of Trinity College of Music, which he relocated to the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich and merged with the Laban Centre for Dance, and thence as Principal to the Central School of Speech snd Drama, gaining Royal Title and a fine new building of studios and theatre. Both his sons, Piers and Caspar, were dedicated trogs at Summer School.