Bethan Irving is in her final year at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where she gained a scholarship in 2013 to study clarinet with Andrew Webster, Joy Farrall, Andrew Marriner and Julian Farrell. Bethan has performed and toured with orchestras across the UK and abroad, working most recently with the London Concert Orchestra, Darwin Ensemble Chamber Orchestra, Mediterranean Opera Studio and Festival Orchestra, Guildhall Symphony Orchestra and European Union Youth Wind Orchestra as their principal Eb clarinet. Having just completed the Street Orchestra of London tour, her upcoming engagements now include the Guildhall Gold Medal Orchestra, Chipping Campden Festival Academy Orchestra, Street Orchestra of London and Young Musician’s Symphony Orchestra as their principal clarinet. A keen chamber musician, Bethan is currently a member of the Square Mile Quartet which has recently been taking Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ into schools. Bethan has extensive experience of working with various sized chamber ensembles as a freelance clarinettist and recently formed a Bass clarinet duo. With her wind quintet, she has produced and led workshops in schools across the country in partnership with the Centre for Young Musician’s. Bethan is heavily involved with education, having recently been awarded the International Kodály Society Scholarship 2017, and is currently a Kodály class teacher at the Junior Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She has gained a wealth of experience as a private and classroom peripatetic clarinet and piano teacher over the past six years, including tutoring for the LA Philharmonic Residency ‘Young Orchestra East’ and on Newham’s ‘Every Child a Musician’ wider opportunities scheme. Passionate about outreach, Bethan is a committee member of the Street Orchestra of London, helping to organise tours to prisons, refugee centres, parks, train stations and fulfilling their motto of ‘Music for everyone, anywhere’. As a soloist Bethan has performed Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto with the Guildhall Ubu Ensemble, Weber’s Concerto No.1 as a prize winner of the King’s College Concerto Competition, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the CBSO Youth Academy Orchestra and reaching the final of the Chandos Young Musician Competition and the Needlemaker’s Woodwind Prize. Her work as a freelance clarinettist has also led her to record for the National Television Studios and Penguin Books. Bethan also studies composition and singing at the Guildhall School, after being given the first ever ten year long service award by the CBSO Youth Chorus. She subsequently became a member of the London Symphony Chorus with whom she regularly performs and records in London and abroad.