Adam Ockelford studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, before embarking on a career that has embraced performing, composing, teaching, researching, writing, consultancy, and management. His Ph.D. drew together thinking from music theory and music psychology, in investigating how music intuitively makes sense to us all. Today, his research interests are in music psychology, education, theory and aesthetics--particularly special educational needs and the development of exceptional abilities; learning, memory and creativity; the cognition of musical structure and the construction of musical meaning. He has over 100 publications to his name, including 20 books. He is Secretary of the Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research ('SEMPRE'), Chair of Soundabout, an Oxfordshire-based charity in the UK that supports music provision for children and young people with complex needs, and founder of The AMBER Trust, a charity that supports visually impaired children in their pursuit of music.

Graham F. Welch holds the Institute of Education, University of London Established Chair of Music Education. He is elected chair of the internationally based Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research (SEMPRE), president of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) and past co-chair of the Research Commission of ISME. Current Visiting Professorships include the Universities of Queensland (Austra-lia), Limerick (Eire) and Roehampton (UK). He is also a member of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council's (AHRC) Review College for music and has been a specialist consultant for Government departments and agencies in the UK, Italy, Sweden, USA, Ukraine, UAE, South Africa and Argentina. Publications number over two hundred and sixty and embrace musical development and music education, teacher education, the psychology of music, singing and voice science, and music in special education and disability. Publications are in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Greek, Japanese and Chinese.