About the adjudicators

Jonathan Rea

Jonathan Rea enjoys being a Federation adjudicator because he loves to create a friendly, affirming and positive atmosphere in which performers can thrive and make real progress.
He studied music at Cambridge, where he sang in the University Chamber Choir. He held choral and instrumental awards and won the Rima Alamuddin prize for piano performance, thanks to transformational lessons with Peter Pettinger.
After 10 happy years as Director of Music in Bangor Grammar School, he began a broader career in conducting, producing, writing, composing, arranging and piano accompanying. He has conducted many programmes for BBC Songs of Praise and directed the Belfast choir for Children in Need. For several years he was the Principal Examiner for A-Level Music Performance in Northern Ireland. He is the choral director for the annual Sing! conference in Nashville, conducting choirs with up to 1000 participants. He also provides courses and consultancy to churches who seek help with music-related issues.
Jonathan is Creative Director and Chief Executive of New Irish Arts, whose choir, orchestra and youth choir perform at over 20 events per year. They have sold out Belfast’s Waterfront Hall on numerous occasions, and often have over 250 participants in their larger concerts. Jonathan is also active a writer and speaker, contributing to programmes like Radio 4’s Prayer for the Day and Morning Service.
In the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2020, Jonathan was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to Music in Northern Ireland.

Donal McCrisken

Donal is a Belfast based teacher and musician with many year experience as pianist, accompanist, conductor, examiner and adjudicator. He holds a BMus degree from Queen’s University Belfast and a Masters in Music Theory and Analysis from University of Ulster. He was formerly Head of Music at St Malachy’s College Belfast, Northern Ireland’s first specialist music school. Previously, Donal conducted Cappella Caeciliana Chamber Choir performances in in Northern Ireland, Dublin, Germany, Austria Italy, and the USA. In conjunction with the choir, Donal has overseen five CD recordings and numerous radio broadcasts. He has worked with Northern Ireland Opera and the music department of Queen’s University Belfast.
He has organised and delivered many vocal workshops and, with his wife, Helena, has coached adult language students in France. As a qualified British and International Federation of Festivals Adjudicator, he has adjudicated widely throughout Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the UK. Donal founded the Cavehill Community Choir and was the choral director and repetiteur for the Belfast Opera project for which he was awarded the Classic FM Musicians Union Inspiration Award.
He was awarded an MBE for services to music, education and community relations in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020.

Judey Struth

Judey, an Associate of Trinity College London and an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals, has been involved with Festivals as a performer, teacher and parent for many years. Her passion is poetry, Scots in particular. As an Adjudicator, her mission is to encourage parents, teachers and children to support their local Festivals and to discover the tremendous life skills to be gained through performance. We are delighted to welcome Judey back to Glasgow Music Festival.

Avril Smillie

Avril Smillie has a lifelong involvement in Scottish country dancing. She began attending local Royal Scottish Country Dance Society classes while at primary school and participated in Scottish country dance competitions as a child and an adult. Avril is qualified to teach and adjudicate Scottish country dancing at all levels. She taught the RSCDS children’s classes in Falkirk for many years, entering the children in competitions.
At college and university, Avril danced in and trained adult Scottish country dance teams, taking them to France several times, both to the Dijon international competition and to Falkirk’s twin town of Quimper. After qualifying as a college lecturer, Avril continued to teach classes for children and adults under the name of Dalriada Dancers. She took the adult teams, including herself as a participant, to Festival Interceltique de Lorient eight times as part of the ensemble representing Scotland. She was invited also to take teams to participate in the Odenwald festival in Germany, and in festivals in Galicia.
Avril is a skilled choreographer. She trained soldiers to dance for the Berlin Military Tattoo and actors in Scottish country dancing for the television adaption of Boswell & Johnson’s Tour of the Western Isles. Her most challenging, but enjoyable, work as choreographer was for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Each summer for seven years, she blended parts of well-known traditional Scottish country dances into spectacles of shape and movement involving twelve teams – a total of one hundred and twenty dancers, including herself, from all over Scotland.
For the last seven years, Avril has been teaching and entering children from Dalriada Dancers in Scottish country dancing graded medal tests. She also prepares and enters children for these tests from three Primary schools in the Falkirk area.