John MacKenzie was born and educated in South London. At secondary school he started to learn the clarinet and became a member of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra and the London Youth Symphony Orchestra.
As a student at the Royal Academy of Music he was taught by Frederic Jackson who encouraged him to sing with the London Philharmonic Choir. Studies at the Colchester Institute of Performing Arts and Trent Park College of Education led him to a career in music education.
His first teaching appointment was with the Instrumental Music Teaching Service of the London Borough of Brent where he formed and conducted the Brent Youth Concert Band. He moved with his family from London to Darlington in 1979 to be Head of Music at Hummersknott School, Darlington.
In 1989 he was appointed Assistant Director of the Cleveland Instrumental Music Service and following the demise of the County of Cleveland he was appointed Head of the Instrumental & Vocal Teaching Faculty of the Tees Valley Music Service. Until 2006 he was conductor of the Tees Valley Youth Wind Orchestra, one of the North East’s leading youth wind ensembles that has performed at both the National Festival of Music for Youth and the National Concert Band Festival, toured abroad and has given the first performance of a number of commissions for wind orchestra in particular in 1995 Martin Ellerby’s “Paris Sketches”
John is a member of the board of the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain responsible for the society’s finances and is a director of the Clarinet and Saxophone Educational Trust. He is a founder member of the British Clarinet Ensemble and musical director of the Darlington Clarinet Ensemble.
John holds graduate and post graduate degrees of the Open University. | 
