Dawn Bennett is a Research Academic with Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. She holds postgraduate degrees in education and performance, and has worked extensively in England and Australia as a musician, educator and manager in the school and university sectors. Her research interests focus on professional practice in music and the effectiveness of education, training and the cultural environments which affect the sustainability of that practice.

Evangeline Kai-Wen Cheng has pursued careers as a performing musician, a music educator and a music therapist. She is currently a doctoral student in the School of Arts and Humanities at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Colin Durrant is the course leader for graduate studies in Music Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. He has written a number of articles on music education and choral education and has further interests in the philosophy of music and music education, the professional development of teachers and conductors, and communication and leadership skills in music. His book Choral Conducting: Philosophy and Practice was published in 2003. He is conductor of the University of London Chamber Choir and Imperial College Choir.

Antonia Forari studied Musicology at the Department of Musical Studies at the Kapodistrian University of Athens. She obtained an MA in Music Education, and a PhD in the Sociology of Music and Music Education from the Institute of Education, University of London. She is a Senior Lecturer at Intercollege in Cyprus where she lectures in the Music and Education Departments. Her research interests explore topics in the sociology of music and music education, curriculum studies and education policy.

Helena Gaunt is the Deputy Head of Wind, Brass and Percussion at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. She completed a PhD at the Institute of Education, London University in 2006, supervised by Professor Susan Hallam. In addition to research focusing on the specialist discipline of oboe playing, her research interests include generic aspects of one-to-one instrumental tuition in conservatoires, and the relationship between improvisation in musical and conversational teaching contexts. Alongside teaching and research she works as a professional oboist. She has been a member of the Britten Sinfonia, and has played with, for example, the Orchestra of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Garsington Opera, and the Composers' Ensemble.

Angela E. Major is a Senior Lecturer in Music Education at Roehampton University. Prior to this she worked in secondary comprehensive schools in the North West of England as a music teacher for over 20 years and as a part-time tutor on the Open University's flexible PGCE Music course. Her current work is an extension of her doctoral research (Open University, 2001) on talk as an aspect of appraising in the music classroom. Previous publication includes ‘Reframing Curriculum Design’ (1996, BJME, 13, 183–93).

Michael Webb studied ethnomusicology with Mark Slobin and has taught extensively at both secondary and tertiary levels in Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the USA. He has published entries in the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music and the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, as well as the first monograph on Melanesian popular music called Lokal Musik: Lingua Franca Song and identity in Papua New Guinea. He is a Lecturer in the Music Education Unit at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney. His research interests include new literacies and classroom music learning, popular culture and education, and ethnomusicology and music education.