About
Dr Steven Berryman is an arts and cultural educator that has contributed widely to music education. Steven joined the Odyssey Trust for Education in 2020 as Director, Arts and Culture, working with colleagues across the two schools in the Trust (Townley Grammar and King Henry) to ensure all pupils have an enriching and innovative arts and cultural provision. In 2022 the role changed (Trust Director) to focus more broadly on school improvement. During Steven’s two years with the trust he was instrumental in launching a Cultural Education Partnership for Bexley securing investment from A New Direction to develop the partnership.
From May 2022 he was elected the President-Elect of the Chartered College of Teaching, assuming the role of President from November 2022. He holds a variety of non-executive director roles including school governance. Steven was one of the first Chartered Teachers, and the part of the pilot cohort for the Chartered Teacher (Leadership) strand. Steven was formerly Director of Music at City of London School for Girls (2015-2020), and for 2019-2020 academic year was seconded to the Education Strategy Unit at the City of London Corporation leading on cultural and creative learning projects across the family of schools in the City. Previously Steven taught at the Junior Departments of the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity Laban and taught music at the North London Collegiate School.
Steven has contributed widely to educational press, expert roundtables, examining and as an arts education practitioner including work as a composer; recent work includes projects with Royal Opera House, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NMC Recordings and Ofqual. 2021 - 2022 Steven was a member of the DFE/DCMS expert panel to refresh the National Plan for Music Education - the refreshed plan was published 25 June 2022.
Steven was granted Freedom of the City of London in 2017, is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Chartered College of Teaching, Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors and is a Chartered Teacher. He is a Liveryman of both the Worshipful Company of Educators and Worshipful Company of Musicians.
As a composer, Dr Berryman's work has included a wide range of projects. His orchestral piece 'Cypher' (2010) was selected by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for performance in their Welsh Composers Showcase and was performed by the orchestra on 18 February 2011, conducted by Jan Van Steen at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay. Opera Holland Park commissioned transcriptions of Donizetti for a dance performance, 'Dance Holland Park' in June 2012 and other work for theatre includes Jamie Zubairi's one-man show 'Unbroken Line' (Ovalhouse December 2012) and 'Corpo: Lixa da Alma' (Cena Internacional Brasil, Rio de Janerio, June 2012).
His choral work 'Versa est in Luctum' was performed in Washington, D.C. January 2013 as part of the New Voices @ CUA Festival. In September 2016 a new work for community choir was performed by LSO Community Choir and students from City of London School for Girls as part of 'Old Street New Beginnings', celebrating fifty years since the joining of the St. Luke's and St. Giles' parishes. With Royal Opera House Learning Dr Berryman assisted with re-writing the Fanfare competition (2015 - 2017) and has been a judge for the final entries for two years. In 2018 he will be the Composer-Educator and lead the workshops developing the finalist entries with students and the team of mentors. He has also acted as a consultant for 'Create and Sing Carmen', writing materials for teachers. He is presently a member of the Create and Sing Steering Group and worked on the writing of ‘Create and Sing Hansel and Gretal’ in 2018-2019.
For London Philharmonic Orchestra Education Dr Berryman wrote and presented a concert on an A-level Music set work with musicians from the orchestra (2017). In 2018/19 he wrote and presented short films on aspects of composing at GCSE for LPO suitable for teachers and students. For NMC Recordings he devised resources to assist with the teaching of composition (2016-2017) and a new app R:Strng (2017). With researchers from Guildhall School (2016), he devised and led a project that connected with the 'Understanding Audiences' research group at Guildhall, investigating school-age students' attitudes to chamber music. Follow @steven_berryman