Maya Ann Morris is a conductor, arranger, educator and pianist based in South Wales. She is a first-year PhD Music student at Cardiff University, undertaking research into the pianism and pedagogy of Alfred Cortot (1877–1962), funded through a Cardiff University Studentship award. Her project is supervised by Dr. Caroline Rae and Dr. Rachel Moore. She completed both her BA and MA degrees in Music at Cardiff University and was awarded the John Morgan Lloyd prize for meritorious final-year students at the end of her undergraduate degree. Alongside her research, Maya is an active conductor and pianist within her local community, holding the position of Musical Director at Bargoed Male Voice Choir since the beginning of 2022.

Yajie Ye is a London-based conductor and researcher currently pursuing a PhD at King’s College London, supervised by Dr Amy Blier-Carruthers. Her practice-based research delves into conducting strategies within recording production, integrating ethnographic fieldwork. She is interested in group creativity and distributed leadership functions in contemporary music- making related to the recording industry. She studied an MPhil at University of Glasgow, supervised by Professor John Butt, and a BMus in composition and vocal performance at Cardiff University. As a conductor, Yajie held the conducting fellow position at Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy. Her leadership extends to roles as a musical director for ensembles like Cardiff University Bella Cantas and South China Normal University College of Arts Choir. As the co-founder of the Pavilion Ensemble, Yajie spearheads interdisciplinary and educational composition projects with young music professionals. Yajie’s versatility extends to her role as a Mezzo-Soprano, having received the Lanfine Choral Exhibitioner Scholarship from the University of Glasgow Chapel Choir and the Young Singers Choral Scholarship from the London Oriana Choir. Additionally, she served as an editor at eSharp Journal.