Professor Helena Gaunt is the Assistant Principal (Research and Academic Development) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where she provides strategic leadership in research, innovation and enterprise. She is also a National Teaching Fellow (2009). Her current research focuses on one-to-one and small group tuition in conservatoires, orchestral musicians in the twenty first century, and the role of improvisation (verbal and musical) in developing professional expertise.

She is an Associate of the Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Alongside research, she is a professional oboist, and has been a member of the Britten Sinfonia. She is a co-editor of Music Performance Research and a member of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Music Education. Helena co-directs the InnovativeConservatoire seminars, a programme of international professional development for conservatoire teachers, and is also the Chair of the Forum for Instrumental and Vocal Teaching for the International Society of Music Education (ISME). From 2007-2010 she chaired the Research group of the Polifonia project for the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC), resulting in a Polifonia handbook Researching Conservatoires. Helena lives in London and has five children, including two sets of twins.