Meet our adjudicators.

We are delighted to welcome Peter Dayson back to the Don Valley Festival as our Speech and Drama adjudicator for 2027.

Peter has spent more than 50 years working in theatre as a producer, director, actor and writer. His career has taken him throughout the UK and internationally, providing opportunities to perform in plays, musical theatre and television, as well as to create and direct productions of his own. Throughout his career, Peter has retained a deep affection for the performing arts and the people who work within them.

Peter began his career in repertory theatre, performing with companies in Manchester, Nottingham, Bath, Swansea and numerous other locations. He has played a wide variety of roles, ranging from Shakespeare to modern drama, and has appeared in musicals including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Grease, Hair and Godspell. His television credits include appearances in much-loved programmes such as Doctor Who, ’Allo ’Allo! and Blake’s 7.

As a producer and director, Peter has been responsible for more than 70 productions, ranging from pantomime and Shakespeare to large-scale musicals. He spent seven years as Artistic Director of the Stafford Gatehouse Theatre, where he directed pantomimes and Shakespeare Festival productions. His directing credits include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Godspell at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Hair at the London Palladium and Oh What a Lovely War at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Peter also worked with Disney as writer and executive producer of its first pantomime for television. This was followed by a charity production at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre featuring Disney characters and performers from stage and screen.

Peter is especially proud of the original musicals he has written and staged. These include Strawberry Fields Forever, which played at the London Palladium and later transferred to the United States, and Hazlewood: Legends of the Castle, staged at Hazlewood Castle. His productions have brought together hundreds of performers, received awards and reached audiences internationally. He continues to develop projects and events that bring people together through performance.

Peter is an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals and has adjudicated at festivals throughout the UK and internationally, including events in Canada, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. He is passionate about encouraging young performers and exploring new ways to introduce them to the festival movement.

Away from the theatre, Peter enjoys spending time with his wife Anna, their three children and their dog Benji. He is also a devoted Tottenham Hotspur supporter with a well-known love of egg and chips.

Donal McCrisken is a Belfast-based musician with extensive experience as a pianist, accompanist, conductor, examiner and adjudicator. He holds a BMus degree from Queen’s University Belfast and a master’s degree in Music Theory and Analysis from the University of Ulster.

From January 1999 until his retirement from the choir in November 2021, Donal was Musical Director of Cappella Caeciliana, one of Ireland’s leading chamber choirs. Under his direction, Cappella gave concerts and sang liturgies throughout Northern Ireland and in Dublin, Germany, Austria, Italy and the United States. The choir recorded five highly successful CDs and appeared frequently in broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Ulster and RTÉ. In April 2011, Cappella toured the United States, giving concerts in Philadelphia and singing choral evensong at Washington National Cathedral.

Donal has studied singing with Russell Smythe and Kathryn Harries, two of Britain’s leading vocal teachers. He has organised and delivered vocal workshops in Belfast and elsewhere, working with children, adults in the workplace and adult language students in France. He has also worked with Northern Ireland Opera as a répétiteur, accompanist and workshop facilitator, and teaches performance classes in the Music Department at Queen’s University Belfast.

From 2005 to 2011, Donal was Head of Music at St Malachy’s College, Belfast, Northern Ireland’s first specialist music school. During this time, he led students on concert tours to Washington DC, Philadelphia, England and Rome.

As a qualified adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals, Donal has adjudicated at festivals throughout Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. In 2004, he studied at the renowned Kodály School in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, under the guidance of Dénes Szabó.

Donal founded Cavehill Community Choir in February 2013. This non-auditioned choir has approximately 150 members and performs regularly at concerts and community events. It has also appeared at the Belfast Festival at Queen’s and on BBC Radio Ulster.

Donal was Choral Director and répétiteur for the Belfast Opera project, which culminated in performances in June 2016. For this work, he received the Classic FM and Musicians’ Union Inspiration Award. The project was also nominated for the Best Classical Music Education Initiative Award.

In 2020, Donal was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to music, education and cross-community relations in Northern Ireland.

Maria Jagusz trained as a dancer before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she was awarded the Ricordi Prize for Opera. Further scholarships enabled her to continue her training at the National Opera Studio.

Maria began her professional career with Opera North and has since worked as an operatic and concert singer with leading companies and venues throughout the UK and Europe. Her roles have included Carmen, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Dorabella in Così fan tutte and Rosina in The Barber of Seville. She has performed alongside many of the world’s leading singers, including Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Mirella Freni and Dame Felicity Lott. Her operatic work has also included Filipyevna in Eugene Onegin for Mid Wales Opera. Maria is also a keen recitalist and a regular soloist with choral societies throughout the UK.

As a teacher, Maria specialises in preparing young singers for professional careers in opera and musical theatre. Alongside her private teaching practice, she has worked as a vocal consultant for the International College of Musical Theatre in London.

To give developing singers the practical experience needed to succeed in the profession, Maria founded MJ-UK Music and Arts. Through the organisation, she provides young performers with opportunities to appear in concerts and staged productions in the Cotswolds and Cornwall, within a safe and welcoming environment. Her directing credits for MJ-UK include Carmen, Bastien und Bastienne, Dido and Aeneas, Les Misérables, West Side Story, The Secret Garden, Jesus Christ Superstar, Seussical and The Marriage of Figaro for Stroud Arts Festival.

Maria has a longstanding association with Longborough Festival Opera. She has served as Vocal Mentor for its Young Artists programme and has directed productions including The Little Sweep, Dido and Aeneas, La bohème, Sweeney Todd and Orfeo ed Euridice. She currently works as Vocal Coach and Mentor for the Longborough Youth Chorus.

Maria has also directed Longborough’s Playground Opera programme, which brings specially adapted operatic productions into primary schools. Productions have included Hansel and Gretel and Carmen, introducing more than 1,000 children to live opera.

An experienced adjudicator and member of the British and International Federation of Festivals, Maria is committed to encouraging performers of all ages and helping them develop through supportive and constructive feedback.