Concordia Magazine 2025

English was another source of inspiration for Harrison, who recalls Mr Gibbons’s classes being a great space for creativity and discussion. ‘He even wrote to us after “24 Hours of Music” to say how proud he was, and he helped us reach our fundraising target, which meant a lot.’ When Harrison started at MTS, music was a hobby, not something he thought of as a career. He took GCSE Music because he was a music exhibitioner, thinking he would also study languages and go on to read Law and become a diplomat. But once he began the GCSE syllabus, everything changed: ‘I’d be counting down the days to my music lessons, then realising that doing A-level Music would mean that I had a music lesson every single day!’.

Harrison speaks with great warmth about the teachers who encouraged him. He recalls having so many ideas — ‘24 Hours of Music’, starting an a cappella jazz ensemble (the Blue Notes), conducting a swing band, volunteering with friends Alex Kerley, Ollie Mansfield (2014–2019), Joshua Winyard (2015–2020), Theo Berenzweig (2016–2021) and Harry Brook (2016–2021) to run the Bushey Heath School Choir — and Joan Stubbs and Simon Couldridge would just say, ‘yes, we can make that happen’. The encouragement they gave him showed Harrison that if you are willing to put in the work and have people who support you, you can achieve some remarkable things. Rosalind Couchman taught Harrison sight-singing in one to-one lessons at School. This has proved to be an essential skill in many of his professional pursuits, as a conductor and singer, and enables him to learn music much more quickly. Harrison also credits Mrs Mannington with rekindling his love of the piano. He had a natural aptitude for the saxophone, but the piano was a slightly different story. Mrs Mannington knew that when lessons were proving challenging she could indulge Harrison’s love for jazz piano, and she successfully encouraged him through to Grade 8.

Fundraising for Phab

That decision led him to study music at the University of Bristol, where he discovered a passion for singing. At that stage Harrison imagined being a choral singer or a choral conductor, having been involved in conducting the Chamber Choir and Madrigal Ensemble in Bristol, but it was when he was singing in the Bristol Cathedral Choir that he realised that he might be able to have a professional singing career. Harrison met Craig Bissex, who became his teacher at Bristol, and it was Craig’s encouragement that helped him decide to apply to the Royal Academy of Music.

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As Escamillo in Carmen November 2025