Meet The Team

Sylvia Ardron retired from the NHS as a Senior Nurse after a 40-year career. She has had a lifelong interest in music as both a pianist, organist and singer, having been a member of numerous singing groups and choral societies, notably the Three Choirs’ Festival Chorus which she has sung with for more than 30 years. She currently leads a community choir in Upton St Leonards.

Sylvia developed an interest in elderly care in her time with NHS and has been a Board Member of Mindsong since 2010, serving as Secretary and more recently as Chair. Throughout this time she has also been a volunteer singer and accompanist with Mindsong singing groups.

Sylvia is married to Keith, a retired Nuclear Engineer. They have two children and four grandchildren.

Gez Dawson is a highly experienced finance professional, non-executive director, and board advisor with over 30 years of leadership in consumer-focused businesses. A Chartered Accountant (FCA), Gez has built a distinguished career helping founder-led and private equity-backed brands grow sustainably, improve profitability and navigate successful exits.

Currently, Gez serves as Chair and CFO of TruffleHunter, a premium food manufacturer, and holds board roles with AYM Studio and The Union Project, both innovative fashion brands. His portfolio career allows him the flexibility to contribute meaningfully to the charitable sector, where he is also a trustee of Longfield Hospice.

Martyn was born and brought up in Bristol. He has an MA in Natural Sciences from Clare College, Cambridge and an MBA from Durham University Business School. He is a Fellow of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

He worked in finance roles in various sectors, including sixteen years with Dyson and the Dyson Family Office. Since stepping down from full-time work in 2017 he has run his own consultancy business.  

He has enjoyed a number of roles with not-for-profit organisations, including Chair of Elim Housing, President of the Association of Corporate Treasurers and (currently) Chair of Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum. He is also currently Vice-Chair of Lilian Faithfull Care, Governor of South Gloucestershire and Stroud College, member of the Audit Committee of Clare College, Cambridge and Trustee of Thames Head Singers.

James Gilchrist is one of the UK’s leading tenors whose extensive repertoire has seen him perform in major concert halls and opera houses throughout the world. He is also a prolific and versatile recitalist. Mindsong is honoured that James has been our President since 2016, a role he actively embraces as an ambassador for the charity, as well as through fundraising activities. 

James started his working life as a doctor before turning to a full-time career in music. He writes:

Our family was always surrounded by music, and I think I just assumed it was a normal thing to do. I was lucky enough to sing in the choir of New College, Oxford as a boy treble, and as a tenor in that of King’s Cambridge. But I wanted to be a doctor. Not in a half-hearted way, but truly as a vocation, and it is only really by accident that I find myself not in medicine, but in the arts. And so, while studying and working in medicine, I sang in groups such as the Sixteen, the Tallis scholars and the Cardinall’s Musick, alongside appearing regularly in choral societies up and down the country as their tenor soloist. In retrospect, this was a wonderful training.

I think, though, that I never dreamt that I might one day earn my living through singing. It was just part of normal life – another straightforward way to communicate. I have come to realise that it’s the unique fusion of words and music that is singing that moves me beyond measure, and makes singing the essence of my musical self.

I believe the arts are in some profound way essential to all of us. Artistic expression and endeavour are what makes us human, and the most visceral and basic of our modes of communication. It’s glib to call music the medicine of the soul, but I think there’s some truth in that.