Krystyna Budzynska

She was awarded an exhibition by London County Council to study piano here as a Junior Exhibitioner before embarking on the Graduate Course at Senior Academy. She started teaching and assisting with administration at Junior Academy as a second-year student. She was appointed as Assistant Director in 1986 and Associate Director in 2009.

Communication via music and nurturing the development of talented young music students has been at the heart of her work. She teaches, mentors, advises, encourages and supports students, teachers and parents and is driven by a determination to ensure that young students who show musical potential can, like her, access a similar, stimulating musical education irrespective of their background.

She is a practicing creative musician working as a: ballet pianist, chamber musician, accompanist and composer. She has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, St Martin in the Fields and other venues across London.

Krystyna has developed a creative approach to administration and successive directors have allowed her to put her ideas into practice. These include the setting up of Primary Academy, concert series at the Purcell Room in the 1980s and at the church of St Martin in the Fields in the 1990s, producing a termly Junior Academy Newsletter for over 25 years and being involved in the ongoing structuring and development of the Junior Academy curriculum over many years.

Krystyna is driven by her passion for excellence in music and equality of opportunities. She is the co-founder of The Advance Network which was set up to look at and overcome the barriers facing BAME and disadvantaged young musicians across the whole spectrum of music. She has welcomed diverse audiences and groups in the Academy through the projects she has produced and continues to look at new areas of collaboration. Her work has been acknowledged by many organisations involved in the changing musical landscape.

Krystyna is much in demand as an adjudicator, mentor and advocate for children’s arts. In 2017 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award (sponsored by the Incorporated Society of Musicians) by Classical Music Teacher Magazine Awards for Excellence.