Composers

Shorter House is proud to publish contemporary choral music by established and emerging composers, as you can see from the list below. 

Malcolm Archer has had a distinguished career in church music which has taken him to the posts of Organist and Director of Music at three English Cathedrals: Bristol, Wells and St Paul’s, and for eleven years, Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. He has for many years directed the choir for the Jean Langlais Festival in France. His active career as a conductor and composer has taken him all over the globe, directing choirs and courses in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Europe. As an orchestral conductor, he has worked with the London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia and the BBC Concert Orchestra in addition to many other professional groups. He conducted a performance of John Rutter’s Requiem for the composer’s 70th birthday concert in the Temple Church, London, in the presence of the composer and recorded by Classic FM, and for several years, his choir in Winchester sang for the Classic FM Carol Concert. He also conducted the 20th anniversary performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Requiem’ in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Over the years, his BBC Radio 3 broadcasts and commercial recordings have won many plaudits, and his Christmas recording with St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir was editor’s choice in The Daily Telegraph. He has recorded with labels such as Warner Classics, Hyperion and Convivium, and his disc of Herbert Howells choral music with Wells Cathedral Choir and Hyperion has received wide acclaim. His recordings are frequently played on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM including his recording of Mozart’s Requiem with Winchester College Chapel Choir and the London Mozart Players. He has worked with some of the world’s finest singers and has recorded with Dame Emma Kirkby, James Bowman CBE, Sarah Fox and John Mark-Ainsley. As an organist and harpsichordist he is in frequent demand and has given solo concerts all over the world, including concert tours in the USA, Canada, New Zealand and in Europe. His performances with orchestra have included Poulenc’s Organ Concert and Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and the Bach keyboard concertos, and he has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra in a classic rock concert in the Royal Albert Hall. He has an extensive concert repertoire and has recorded a wide variety of works, including J.S. Bach organ works and Messiaen’s La Nativite du Seigneur as well as his own compositions. Malcolm Archer’s choral works are performed in many countries and are respected for their approachable singability, interesting harmonic character and understanding of the singing voice. He is often commissioned to compose works for special occasions, which have included the 80th birthday service of HM the Queen in St. Paul’s Cathedral, the dedication of the Churchill Memorial Gates at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and the Southern Cathedrals’ Festival. He has over 250 published works and amongst other companies, he publishes with Oxford University Press, with whom he has also co-edited two very successful books: Advent for Choirs and Epiphany to All Saints for Choirs. He was also editor of Carols Ancient and Modern. (published by Hymns Ancient and Modern). He also composes instrumental works, and choral works with orchestra. His one act opera ‘George and the Dragon’ has become very popular as a community project. Similar in scope and conception to Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, it involves young singers alongside an amateur choir and adult professional singers and chamber orchestra. He was recently commissioned to compose ‘Vespers’ by The Farrant Singers, and his ‘Requiem’ is performed frequently both here and abroad, either with orchestra, or in its original form with organ. Malcolm Archer has worked extensively for the BBC, including directing choirs for TV and Radio broadcasts, and he has worked with the BBC Singers and the BBC Daily Service Singers. He has on several occasions been an adjudicator for BBC competitions including the Young Choristers of the Year, and Songs of Praise School Choirs’ competition, where his co-adjudicators included Katherine Jenkins and Pete Waterman. He has also been a judge for the liturgical section of the British Composer Awards. He studied as an RCO scholar at the Royal College of Music and was Organ Scholar at Jesus College Cambridge, where he read music. His organ teachers were Ralph Downes, Gillian Weir and Nicolas Kynaston, and he studied composition with Herbert Sumsion, Bernard Stevens and Alan Ridout. He holds Fellowships from the Royal College of Organists, the Royal School of Church Music and the Guild of Church Musicians, the latter two awarded for his many years of service to the church as a choir trainer and composer.
George Arthur Richford is a multi-award-winning composer and conductor, living and working in the South of England. He currently directs at Salisbury Cathedral having held previous posts at Newcastle Cathedral, St John’s College, Durham, Romsey Abbey and Southampton University. His compositions have been performed and broadcast around the world, and have received premiers on BBC 1, Radio 3 and 4, and at the 300th Anniversary of the Three Choirs’ Festival in Hereford. He has had commissions from Ralph Allwood and the ORNC in Greenwich, Canterbury Cathedral, Choir and Organ Magazine, Royal Holloway University amongst others. He currently holds a major contract with Universal Edition and is recording a number of his works with the acclaimed chapel choir of Royal Holloway, under Rupert Gough.
Paul Ayres was born in London, studied music at Oxford University, and now works freelance as a composer & arranger, choral conductor & musical director, and organist & accompanist. He has received over one hundred commissions, and his works have been awarded composition prizes in Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. Paul particularly enjoys "re-composing" classical works (Purcell, Bach, Handel, Fauré) and "classicizing" pop music (jazz and show tunes, The Beatles, Happy Hardcore). Paul conducts City Chorus and London College of Music Chorus (at the University of West London), accompanies Concordia Voices, and is associate accompanist of Crouch End Festival Chorus. He has led many music education workshops for children, and played piano for improvised comedy shows and musical theatre.
Antony Baldwin was a cathedral chorister and read Music at Oxford, where he was organ scholar of Trinity College. Subsequently, he undertook postgraduate work at Durham. A prizewinner of the Royal College of Organists, he holds the Fellowship and Choir-training diplomas. As a composer, he has written anthems, carols, carol arrangements, a book of descants, secular choral pieces, and organ music. He is currently Director of Music at the American Church of London, and organist to the Thomas Tallis Society and Chamber Choir.
Caz’s love of music began while singing in Gloucester Cathedral as a member of the choir at the King’s School, Gloucester. She began composing for the piano, her principal instrument, before branching into instrumental and choral music while at Cambridge University. She holds an MA from Cambridge and an ABRSM Diploma. As a composer, Caz’s work has been premiered by the Brunel Sinfonia and the Red Maids’ Chamber Choir. More recently she has branched into work for theatre productions and short films. As a viola player, Caz has played extensively with string ensembles, symphony orchestras and quartets. She has taught music for eight years in senior schools as well as working with students at the Bristol Pre-Conservatoire.
David Bevan was educated at Westminster Cathedral Choir School and Downside from where he won an open scholarship to The Queen's College, Oxford. In 1972 he was appointed assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral under Colin Mawby and remained in that post until 1976. In 1973 he won a French government scholarship to study organ with Gaston Litaize and Jean Langlais in Paris. David gained the B Mus degree in composition from Oxford University in 1997. Between 1976 and 1979 he was organist of St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Since 1980 he has worked as a singer, organist, composer and sixth form music teacher. In addition he has been Director of Music at the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More, Chelsea for the past 25 years. His output includes a Magnificat for 8 voices which has been broadcast live by Westminster Cathedral Choir on BBC Radio 3.
Simon is a Melbourne born professional tenor soloist equally at home in Grand Opera, Lieder and English Song, Early Music and contemporary performance art. Since moving to London in the mid 1990’s composition of choral works and editing of Renaissance Polyphony has flourished alongside opera and song, with appearances in the Aldeburgh Festival, Wigmore Hall and the Royal Opera House lunchtime recital series. The London Oratory Senior Choir regularly sings his editions of works by Nicolas Gombert on whose oeuvre his research into musica ficta and polyphony of the High Renaissance has centered. His choral works have been performed by The Tudor Choristers and The Canterbury Fellowship (Melbourne) the London Oratory School Schola (for whom he has written a number of commissions), the choirs of the London Oratory, St. John's, Hampstead and St. Bride's, Fleet Street.
David Briggs is an internationally renowned organist whose performances are acclaimed for their musicality, virtuosity, and ability to excite and engage audiences of all ages. With an extensive repertoire spanning five centuries, he is known across the globe for his brilliant organ transcriptions of symphonic music by composers such as Mahler, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Bruckner, Ravel, and Bach. Fascinated by the art of Improvisation since a child, David also frequently performs improvisations to silent films such as Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Nosferatu, Jeanne d'Arc, Metropolis, as well as a variety of Charlie Chaplin films. At the age of 17, David obtained his FRCO (Fellow of the Royal College of Organists) diploma, winning all the prizes and the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. From 1981-84 he was the Organ Scholar at King's College, Cambridge University, during which time he studied organ with Jean Langlais in Paris. The first British winner of the Tournemire Prize at the St Albans International Improvisation Competition, he also won the first prize in the International Improvisation Competition at Paisley. Subsequently David held positions at Hereford, Truro and Gloucester Cathedrals. He was Artist-in-Residence at St James Cathedral, Toronto and  is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York City.David's schedule includes more than 60 concerts a year, spanning several continents. Deeply committed to making organ music vibrant for future generations, he enjoys giving pre-concert lectures designed to make organ music more accessible to audiences. In addition, he teaches at Cambridge (UK), frequently serves on international organ competition juries, and gives masterclasses at colleges and conservatories across the U.S. and Europe. David Briggs is also a prolific composer and his works range from full scale oratorios to works for solo instruments. He has recorded a DVD, and 30 CDs, many of which include his own compositions and transcriptions.
Daniel was born in Kent and has been a choral singer since primary school. After entering the Kent Youth Choir in 1990, Daniel sang in several chamber and University choirs, before moving to London in 1997 and joining the internationally renowned Vasari Singers. Daniel’s compositions are predominantly sacred choral settings with a distinctly modern harmonic style. Several of Daniel’s works have been commissioned and premiered by the Vasari Singers, including the Responses, which are in regular use in several chapel and chamber choirs in England.
Hilary Campbell is a freelance choral specialist, and is founder and Musical Director of professional chamber choir Blossom Street, and Musical Director of Bristol Choral Society, Chiswick Choir, and the Music Makers of London. Her project work includes guest conducting ensembles including the BBC Singers, Trinity Laban Chamber Choir, and the University of Greenwich Choir, and chorus mastering the BBC Symphony Chorus, and Royal Academy of Music Symphony Chorus. This year, Hilary is acting as Associate Conductor of Ex Cathedra. She often runs an annual project with Master of the Queen’s Music, Judith Weir, at the Royal Academy of Music, in conjunction with Blossom Street and the RAM composition department, and began working there in 2017 as a BMus Lecturer. Hilary gained a Distinction for an MMus in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Patrick Russill; she was also awarded the three choral conducting prizes. Her music has been performed around Europe and in the US, and on various radio stations, by professional and amateur ensembles alike, including: BBC Singers; Polish National Chamber Choir; Vilnius Municipal Choir; The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge. Composition prizes include the Shipley Arts Festival Composer Award, the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Choral Composition Prize, the Philip Bates Prize for Young Composers, and the Musica Sacra International Competition for Composers (second place).
Alexander Campkin's music, described as 'fresh and attractive' by Gramophone, has attracted the attentions of some of the top ensembles. His work has been performed or broadcast in over forty countries. It features on over 20 CDs recorded by ensembles including the London Sinfonietta and the BBC Singers, and one of which was Christmas CD of the Year for Classic FM. His musical journey was changed forever after medical symptoms and the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis aged 17. This was shortly before he was due to perform with the Arad Philharmonic in Romania as a viola player. 'MS changed my life. It stopped me playing viola. But it certainly didn’t stop me composing.' Alexander (b. 1984) has received over one hundred commissions from organisations including The Royal Opera House, The Tallis Scholars, The Royal Ballet Sinfonia, The London Mozart Players, English Touring Opera, The BBC Performing Arts Fund, The Swedish Arts Council, New London Children's Choir, Episcopal School of Jacksonville Florida, The Joyful Company of Singers and The Theatinerkirche Vokalkapelle Munich. He has been appointed Composer in Residence of Ampersandance Contemporary Dance Company, The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Changemakers Ensemble, The Fulham Camerata, The Cantus Ensemble, The Fourth Choir, The Portsmouth Grammar School and Neresheim Abbey in Germany. Alexander's music has been performed in venues including the Berliner Philharmonie, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, Shakespeare's Globe Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Grace Cathedral San Francisco, L'Oratoire de Louvre Paris, Tongyeong Concert Hall South Korea, Christ Cathedral California, LSO St Luke's, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Westminster Abbey, National Concert Hall Dublin, King's Place London, St Martin-in-the-Fields London, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine New York City, Southbank Centre and the Barbican Centre. Alexander is conductor of The Oxbridge Singers and the minimaLIST ENsemble. His growing passion for music education has led him to direct workshops for the Royal Opera House, the BBC Symphony Orchestra Learning, English Touring Opera, Royal College of Music Sparks and Streetwise Opera. Alexander studied at Oxford University where was choral and organ scholar, the Royal Academy of Music, and the University for Performing Arts in Vienna. He has received tuition from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Robert Saxton, Stephen Montague, Michael Jarrell and Simon Bainbridge. He has been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for services to music.
Solfa Carlile is originally from Cork, Ireland. She was awarded the Bill Whelan Music Bursary, graduating with first-class honours from the Royal College of Music, London.  She recently completed doctoral study in music at University of Oxford. Her work has been performed by  National Chamber Choir of Ireland, Illumina, Okeanos, London Chamber Orchestra and the Composers Ensemble among others. She was awarded the Jerome Hynes Commission by The National Concert Hall, Ireland, and was also a recipient of the Sean O’Riada composition award in 2013.  Recently, her Three Byzantine Hymns were commissioned and performed by UK-based Cantata Dramatica, and her cantata on the life of St Cuthbert, co-written with librettist Nick Pitts-Tucker, will be performed at the Durham Vocal Festival in February 2019.
Bill writes music and literature inspired by places. He collaborates with writers, climbers, artists, and scientists. He has a particular interest in sonic and visual structures found in nature and in the interactions between humans and the natural world. He also works as a music director and a coach. He is a keen mountaineer and climber. Bill holds degrees in English Literature (Cambridge University) and orchestral conducting (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama). He has been composing since 2012 and has been a freelance music director since 2002. As a bass-baritone he trained with Thomas Hunt, David Lowe, and Peter Alexander Wilson and enjoyed a singing career before deciding to focus on composing, writing, and directing on a project-by-project basis. In between projects he coaches singers, conductors, composers, and writers. He lives in London. For a 2014 commission from The King's School, Worcester he was inspired to write a piece after watching white-necked ravens duelling mid-air near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro: The Duel of the White-necked Ravens. In 2016/17 he collaborated with the poet Helen Mort on an exploratory climbing expedition in East Greenland. This inspired The Singing Glacier, a piece for baroque orchestra and spoken poetry with film by Richard Jones, commissioned by The Little Baroque Company. Helen’s poetry and the project were celebrated in a publication by Hercules Press. In 2018/19 Bill won a Finzi Scholarship from The Finzi Trust for a project to compose a piece inspired by mountain hares. The resulting composition, Timidus (from the Latin binomial for mountain hare) is for violin, cello, piano, and clarinet. The solo camping research trips also inspired a book about composing with mountain hares in the Cairngorms. The project features in a Finzi Trust podcast. His current place-project is a piece about striations and horizons in Knoydart, Northwest Scotland. His plans for 2021 include a response to the cliffs and sea birds of the Faroe Islands and the island of Foula (Shetland Islands). In 2019 Bill collaborated with Nashashibi/Skaer and Olivia Ray to produce a sound-track for the film Lamb, part of the Future Sun exhibition at S.M.A.K Gallery, Ghent.  He has also composed for Sands Films Studios, London. Bill was Music Director for The Royal Ballet’s productions of  Elizabeth at the Linbury Theatre in 2016 and at the Barbican Theatre in 2018. He is Music Director of Farnborough Symphony Orchestra and Imperial College Sinfonietta, and he guest conducts widely. In recent years Farnborough Symphony Orchestra has performed works by composers including David Matthews and Charlotte Bray and has launched the FSO Young Composer Competition. Imperial College Sinfonietta champions innovative programming and performing layouts. As a tutor Bill directs courses for Lacock Choral Courses, Benslow Music and Jackdaws Music Education Trust. He has a busy private coaching practice. An accomplished sight-reader at the piano, he coaches opera singers, conductors, and composers and also advises young writers. He is a trustee of the Elgar Foundation.
Michael Cayton is Director of Music at St John’s Wood Church. He has a truly varied and distinguished professional career, as an organist, trumpeter and conductor. In his early career he passed through the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall before serving with the Grenadier Guards as a trumpeter, organist and pianist. On leaving the military, he studied piano at the Royal College of Music where he attained his BMus and ARCM and won the Hilda Anderson Deane prize for conducting and improvisation. After graduating, Michael Cayton worked as repetiteur (an accompanist and tutor of musicians and opera singers) in the Royal College of Music opera department and was appointed the first organ Scholar at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. During that time, he worked as an accompanist and repetiteur for another large chorus in Hertfordshire. When he was unexpectedly asked to conduct them for a rehearsal, he enjoyed it immensely. From that moment on he was hooked on conducting. While focussing on developing his skills and experience in choral directing, he fulfilled extensive engagements as an organ and piano recitalist and accompanist in the Wigmore Hall, Westminster Abbey and other leading venues in London and Europe. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, the BBC World Service and on television. Michael Cayton also holds the posts of Conductor to Watford Philharmonic, Organist at Belsize Square Synagogue and Conductor of the Chiltern Choir. As well as the classical repertoire, Michael has eclectic musical tastes and is an accomplished performer of many styles of music including jazz and fusion.
Carson Cooman (b. 1982) is an American composer with a catalog of hundreds of works in many forms—from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. His music has been performed on all six inhabited continents in venues that range from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the basket of a hot air balloon. Cooman’s music appears on over forty recordings, including more than twenty-five complete CDs on the Naxos, Albany, Artek, Gothic, Divine Art, Métier, Diversions, Convivium, Altarus, MSR Classics, Raven, and Zimbel labels. Cooman’s primary composition studies were with Bernard Rands, Judith Weir, Alan Fletcher, and James Willey. As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Over 300 new compositions by more than 100 international composers have been written for him, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of CD releases and more than 2,400 recordings available online. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for a number of international publications. He serves as an active consultant on music business matters to composers and performing organizations, specializing particularly in the area of composer estates and archives.
John was a chorister at Westminster Cathedral before reading music at Oxford University, where he also played drums in jazz and pop bands and developed an interest in electronic music. He has written for choirs including Commotio, Westminster Cathedral Choir and East Oxford Community Choir, and has written commissions for the Edington Music Festival, Crossover Intergenerational Dance Group, Oxford Youth Dance and The Oxford-Grenoble Association. In 2006 John co-founded Oxford-based choir Sospiri with Chris Watson. Sospiri specialises in liturgical singing of plainsong and sings Latin Vespers at Merton College each term, as well as performing regular concerts. Since 2007 John has written a series of settings of World War I poetry, a number of which were recorded by Commotio and included in their disk; Night (released by Herald, 2007). A more recent set was recorded by Sospiri for a disk titled Requiem (The Gift of Music, 2010).
Andrew Earis is Director of Music at St Martin-in-the-Fields where he oversees the music programme at this busy London church. He is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and Imperial College, London, and holds a PhD from the University of Manchester. In addition to his duties at St Martin’s, Andrew is a regular contributor to BBC Radio’s religious output as a producer of programmes including Radio 4 Sunday Worship and Radio 3 Choral Evensong.
Born on the Wirral, Graham Jordan Ellis studied as an organist with Dr. Caleb Jarvis and then with Dr. Noel Rawsthorne at Liverpool Cathedral, composition with Professor Stephen Pratt at Liverpool Hope University, and 'cello with William Jenkins. He graduated with honours from the University of Liverpool, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Academy of St Cecilia. He has been associated with the musical life of Merseyside for many years and has achieved a considerable reputation as an experienced conductor of both choral and orchestral music, working with many choral and operatic societies, with amateur, youth and professional orchestras, including Das Schwäbische Symphonie-Orchester of West Germany, Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Northern Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1990 he founded the Liverpool Sinfonia, an orchestra of freelance professional players which appears with him regularly. Graham has also worked for BBC radio and television and was Director of Music at Birkenhead School for 33 years, during which time its Chapel Choir gained an increasing reputation, performing in cathedrals throughout this country and in concert in France, Venice, Verona, Florence, Prague, Salzburg, Vienna, and Northern Spain. In 2000 he was commissioned to write the choral work Degrees of Joy for the centenary of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union and this received its première in the choir’s Centenary Gala Concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under his direction. With this chorus and the RLPO he subsequently conducted many concerts, including an acclaimed performance of Elgar The Kingdom. Graham has held the post of Music Director to the Chester Music Society since 1996, having been guest conductor for their Golden Jubilee concert, performing Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony, Bax Tintagel and the North West première of Finzi Requiem da Camera. His particular interest in English music is reflected in performances including Finzi Intimations of Mortality, Elgar The Music Makers, Elgar Cello Concerto, Blackford Mirror of Perfection, works by Leigh, Butterworth, Howells and others, and a special performance of Elgar The Dream of Gerontius in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral with the Philharmonic Orchestra and a chorus of 300 voices to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the work’s first performance. Other notable performances have included Puccini Messa di Gloria, Verdi Aida, Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Bernstein West Side Story, Gershwin Porgy and Bess and Rhapsody in Blue with Martin Roscoe and the Northern Chamber Orchestra. More recent concerts have included Bach St Matthew Passion, Bach Mass in B minor, Verdi Requiem, a series of Gala Carol Concerts with actresses Patricia Routledge and Jean Boht, local poet Roger McGough, and the legendary Ken Dodd, in support of local and national charities, Finzi In terra pax, Cello Concerto, Orff Carmina Burana, Karl Jenkins The Armed Man and the rarely performed Janácek Glagolitic Mass. Other concerts include Mozart Mass in C minor, Haydn Trumpet Concerto with Crispian Steele-Perkins, and Britten War Requiem.
Barry Ferguson studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar. After an appointment as Assistant at Peterborough Cathedral, he became Organist at Wimbourne Minster and Rochester Cathedral. He is now a freelance composer, lecturer, and recitalist. He lectures on "Thomas Hardy and Music" for the University of Bristol and on other musical subjects.
Jeremy Filsell is one of only a few virtuoso performers as both pianist and organist. He has appeared as a solo pianist in Russia, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Australia and throughout the USA and UK. His concerto repertoire encompasses Bach, Mozart and Beethoven through to Shostakovich, John Ireland, Constant Lambert and the Rachmaninov cycle. He has recorded the solo piano music of Herbert Howells, Bernard Stevens, Eugène Goossens and Johann Christoph Eschmann and recent releases include discs of Rachmaninov’s solo piano music (Signum), the first two Rachmaninov Concerti (Raven) and the piano music of Francis Pott (Acis). Jeremy is on the international roster of Steinway Piano Artists and has recorded for BBC Radio 3, USA, and Scandinavian radio networks in solo and concerto roles. His discography comprises more than 35 solo recordings. Gramophone magazine commented on the series of 12 CDs comprising the premiere recordings of Marcel Dupré’s complete organ works for Guild in 2000 that it was ’one of the greatest achievements in organ recording’. In 2005, Signum released a 3-disc set of the six organ symphonies of Louis Vierne, recorded on the 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ in St. Ouen, Rouen. He has taught at universities, summer schools, and conventions in both the UK and USA and has served on international competition juries in England and Switzerland. Recent solo engagements have taken him across the USA and UK and to Germany, France, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. In North America, he concertizes under the auspices of Philip Truckenbrod Concert Artists. As a teenager, Jeremy Filsell was a Limpus, Shinn  & Durrant prizewinner for FRCO and was awarded the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. As a student of Nicolas Kynaston and Daniel Roth, he studied as an Organ Scholar at Keble College, Oxford before completing graduate studies in piano performance with David Parkhouse and Hilary McNamara at the Royal College of Music in London. His PhD in Musicology from Birmingham City University/Conservatoire was awarded for research involving aesthetic and interpretative issues in the music of Marcel Dupré. Before moving to the USA in 2008, he held Academic and Performance lectureships at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and was a lay clerk in the Queen’s choir at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. He combined an international recital and teaching career with being director of music at the Church of the Epiphany and then of St. Alban’s in Washington DC, Artist-in-residence at Washington National Cathedral, and Professor of Organ at the Peabody Conservatory (Baltimore), before moving to New York in April 2019 to become Organist & Director of Music at the Church of St. Thomas, 5th Avenue.
Gerald Finzi was born in London on July 14, 1901, and spent his early childhood in London. His father died when he was just seven and following the outbreak of the First World War Finzi moved with his mother to Harrogate, in Yorkshire. There Finzi was able to study composition with the composer Ernest Farrar and from 1917 with Edward Bairstow at York Minster. But attracted by the beauty of the English Countryside, Finzi moved to Painswick, Gloucestershire, in 1922 where he was able to compose in tranquility. His first published work was ‘By Footpath and Stile’ (1921-22), a song-cycle for baritones and string quartet to texts by Thomas Hardy, whose work Finzi greatly admired. But rural and musical isolation soon became oppressive and in 1926 he moved back to London and began to study with RO Morris, one of the outstanding British teachers of the inter-war years. He also became acquainted with Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose influence he was always to acknowledge and who in 1928 conducted Finzi’s Violin Concerto. Other acquaintances in London included Holst, Bliss, Rubbra and Ferguson – who was also to become a life-long friend. In 1930 Finzi gained a teaching appointment at the Royal Academy of Music, but in 1933 gave up the post after he married artist Joy Black and moved back to the country, to Aldbourne, Wiltshire. The same year saw a complete performance of the song-cycle ‘A Young Man’s Exhortation’ (1926-29), his first noted success in London. Combined with another early success, ‘Earth and Air and Rain’ (1928-32), it established him as a masterly and sensitive setter of poetry. His burgeoning career was soon thwarted by the outbreak of the Second World War, causing the cancellation of the song-cycle ‘Dies Natalis’ (1925-39) at the Three Choirs Festival. It was a performance that could have brought him to prominence sooner. In 1939 the Finzis moved to Ashmansworth Farm, Hampshire. During the war years Gerald Finzi was drafted into the Ministry of War Transport and opened his house to a number of German and Czech refugees. He founded the Newbury String Players, initially using local amateurs, reviving much neglected 18th Century string music as well as giving several premieres by his contemporaries. With the return of peace Finzi began to receive a series of important commissions, namely, ‘Lo, The Full, Final Sacrifice’ (1946-47), a festival anthem; a larger scale ode ‘For St Cecilia’ (1946-47); a Clarinet Concerto (1948-49) for Frederick Thurston, which was perhaps his best known work; and his masterpiece ‘Intimations of Immortality’ (1938-50), for tenor, chorus and orchestra. In 1951, however, Finzi learned that he was suffering from Hodgkin’s Disease, a form of leukaemia, and was told he had between five and ten years to live. The discovery in no way lessened his activities, particularly those undertaken for other composers. He had championed Ivor Gurney in the 1930s and those efforts continued. He also worked on the music of Hubert Parry and edited the overtures of William Boyce for Musica Britannica. An all-Finzi concert at the Royal Festival Hall in 1954 acknowledged his standing in Britain’s musical life. A commission from Sir John Barbirolli for the 1955 Cheltenham Festival brought forth the Cello Concerto (1951-52,54-55), Finzi’s most ambitious, purely instrumental work. Finzi finally lost the fight against his illness and he died on September 27, 1956. His Cello Concerto was first broadcast the night before he died. Today, his music continues to be much admired and celebrated. It embraces a rich variety of moods, from elegiac lyricism, through spiritual reflection, to radiant joy. In particular the deaths of his father, three brothers and his teacher introduced the theme of fragility and transient existence, which was explored in many later works. His oeuvre, extending to more than 100 songs for soloist or choir, firmly establishes him as one of the most popular 20th Century British composers.
As well as a composer and arranger, Peter Foggitt is a highly regarded pianist, organist and conductor who made his orchestral debut aged 14, and his first BBC Radio 3 broadcast aged 21 as soloist in Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto. An award-winning accompanist, he also appears frequently with singers and instrumentalists, and was engaged by Aldeburgh Music for their Britten 100 production at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. An alumnus of Chetham’s School and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and a former choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, he has worked in choral music and opera internationally. Last season he was guest chorus master at the Royal Opera, Copenhagen, and at the Polish National Opera. His vocal ensemble Cries of London won their category at the 2011 Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition.
JENNIFER FOWLER studied at the University of Western Australia, where she won composition prizes and the University’s Convocation Award. In 1968 she spent a year in Holland at the University of Utrecht on a Dutch Government Scholarship. Since 1969, she has been living in London where she works as a free-lance composer. Her international prizes for composition include: Academy of Arts, Berlin, 1970; Radcliffe Award of Great Britain, 1971; International Competition GEDOK, Mannheim, 1975; Miriam Gideon Prize, (USA) 2003; Bodman Memorial Competition, (UK) 2006; Sylvia Glickman Memorial Prize, (USA) 2009 and Goleminov Contest, Bulgaria, 2009. Her output includes orchestral works, chamber pieces, solo music and vocal ensembles of all kinds. Her music has been included in such prestigious international festivals as the ISCM World Music Days; the Gaudeamus Music Week, Holland; the Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music, UK; the International Sydney Spring Festival; the Perth International Arts Festival, Australia; City of London Festival; Women in Music festivals in London, Atlanta, Alaska, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Rome, and Beijing; and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music.
Emma Gibbins began her musical career as organ scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge, subsequently holding organ scholar posts at St Martin-in-the-Fields and Southwell Minster. She studied for an MMus in Organ Performance at the Royal College of Music, before spending a number of years working in and around London as Director of Music at High Wycombe Parish Church, Associate Organist at St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London, Director of a newly formed Girls’ Choir at Brentwood Cathedral in Essex and accompanist of the South West London Choral Society. Emma relocated to Northern Ireland in 2008 to take up the position of Director of Music at St. George’s Church in Belfast, where she also taught piano and organ, worked as an accompanist in the music department at Queens University, directed the Belfast Phoenix Choir and accompanied the St George's Singers. She moved to Newport in 2015 as Director of Music at Newport Cathedral, where she is responsible for directing the cathedral’s choir of men and boys and has also established a new girls’ choir and cathedral voluntary choir. She teaches piano for Gwent Music, directs the Adams Chorale, accompanies two Newport “Forget me not choruses” for dementia sufferers and the Cardiff based Chamber Choir, Caritas, and is Chair of the South East Wales RSCM committee.
Louis Halsey studied music at Cambridge, where he sang as an alto Choral Scholar in the celebrated King’s College Choir. In this capacity he took part in four of the famous Festivals of Nine Lessons and Carols under the renowned choral trainer, and Director, Boris Ord. On leaving Cambridge he embarked on a music career which took him all over the world conducting, lecturing, examining, and adjudicating. He was the founder of The Elizabethan Singers and The Louis Halsey Singers, and with these chamber choirs he directed concert performances, broadcasts, and recordings of a wide variety of music, including many commissions and first performances. For nearly 20 years he was a Music Producer for BBC Radio, and has held posts at the University of Illinois and Regent’s University, London. In the latter part of his career, Louis has been increasingly active as a composer and arranger.
Jeremy Jackman’s musical education began as a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral, and continued at the Royal College of Music and Hull University. He began his career as a freelance countertenor and choral director. He sang throughout Eastern and Western Europe as a soloist, and with ensembles such as the BBC Singers, the BBC Northern Singers, the Alfred Deller Choir, the Tallis Scholars and The Sixteen. In the field of opera he created the part of Fulvio in Banchieri’s La Pazzia Senile and sang the title role in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. He was appointed countertenor Lay Clerk at Westminster Cathedral in 1978, under the direction of Stephen Cleobury. Two years later he was invited to join The King’s Singers, succeeding Nigel Perrin as their highest voice, and for the next decade shared their demanding international schedule, performing in the world’s most celebrated concert halls and making countless broadcasts and recordings. In 1990 Jeremy resumed work as a choral conductor, directing choirs, courses and workshops all over the world. As Chorus Master to the Belfast Philharmonic Choir (1991–97) and the London Philharmonic Choir (1992–94) he worked with the world’s most renowned conductors in the preparation of a wide variety of music. In 1994 he was invited to form the Choir of the Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square (now OSJ Voices). He is now Musical Director of the English Baroque Choir and also conducts the Cecilian Singers (Leicester). Jeremy has conducted at the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, St Paul’s Cathedral, Alexandra Palace, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Theatre Royal Drury Lane and St John’s Smith Square (London) as well as at concert halls around the world in Spain, Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, USA, Singapore and Taiwan. He is frequently invited to give workshops and masterclasses with established choirs in the UK and overseas.
Rupert first started composing as a child and gained some success with his orchestral suites that he wrote aged 12. His music (mostly choral) is characterised by a particular intensity and immediacy which maps perfectly onto the occasion. In addition to organ music and music for ensembles, he has composed over 150 settings of the Psalms (used in worship) in a variety of translations and in a range of stylistic idioms. In 2000 at short notice (due to the incapacitation of the Master of the Queen’s Music), Rupert composed the key-note anthem for a National Service attended by HM the Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister. This anthem Here is my servant has been recorded by the St Michael’s Singers on the Regent label. Also in 2000, Rupert composed his Third Service, a setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (in Gb and F# respectively), which has been broadcast regularly and is in the repertoire of numerous Cathedral Choirs such as St Paul’s London, Truro, Chester as well as St Thomas’s Fifth Avenue, New York. He also composed a cantata The Prophet, which uses a translation by Ted Hughes from Pushkin based on Isaiah 6. Missa Jacet Granum was commissioned in 1998 and first performed by Canterbury Cathedral Choir. There are also many other pieces, such as carol arrangements and original pieces that are all characterised by both profundity and wit, with his Advent Calendar (to words of Archbishop Rowan Williams) being particularly effective. His jazzy arrangement of a Caribbean blessing Now Go in Peace is published by the RSCM in the Silver Collection. For the Consecration of Brisbane Cathedral in October 2009 he composed a short anthem God be with us in our Lives, as well as an orchestral piece The Disciples Awakening for 12 string players. His setting of Laudate Dominum (for two-part trebles, two pianos and organ) was premiered at the International Church Music Festival in Coventry in 2000, and he continues to compose much occasional music for ceremonies, worship, events and occasions.
Klatzow's earliest musical training (at about age five years) was at the Roman Catholic convent of Saint Imelda in Brakpan. After completing his schooling at St. Martin's School, Rosettenville, Johannesburg he briefly taught music and Afrikaans at the Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland. Klatzow moved to London in 1964 to study for a year at the Royal College of Music after being awarded a composition scholarship from the South African Music Rights Organisation composition scholarship which allowed him to go to the (RCM) in London to study. His professors included Gordon Jacob (orchestration), Kathleen Long (piano), and Bernard Stevens (composition). He won several prizes for composition while at the school. He later studied in Italy and then with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Klatzow returned to South Africa in 1966, where he worked for the SABC in Johannesburg as a music producer. In 1973 was appointed to the South African College of Music in Cape Town where he later became professor in composition and director.
Catherine was born in Luxembourg but now lives and works in London. She studied composition with Roger Redgate, the piano with John Tilbury and Michele Ries and the cello with Ivan Andrews. In 2008, she was awarded a PhD in Composition by Goldsmiths College, University of London. Catherine is an experimental composer who uses a mix of traditional and graphic scoring methods and works in a variety of genres including contemporary opera and performance art. She has composed works for voice, toy pianos, massed harps, orchestra and the glass harmonica. She is an active performer and one half of critically acclaimed experimental pop duo French For Cartridge. Catherine has been commissioned for new works by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Rational Rec/London, Chetham’s School of Music, Centre National de L’Audiovisuel/Luxembourg and Banque Centrale de Luxembourg. Her work has been performed extensively throughout Europe.
James has written music for the choir of Westminster Abbey, Graham Johnson with The Songmakers' Almanac at the Wigmore Hall, Guy Bovet, James Bowman, for the service in King's College Cambridge celebrating the university's 800th anniversary, and was one of the composers of Song in the City's collaborative song cycle 'Voices of London'. His work has been performed by English Voices, Vivamus and the choirs of St Paul's Cathedral and Trinity College Cambridge, with recordings by the choirs of Girton and Selwyn and the chapel choir of Bedford school. Theatre music includes Io Theatre Company's adaptations of A Christmas Carol and The Snow Spider, their realisation of J. M. Barrie's A Well Remembered Voice and their forthcoming production The Confessions of Fanny Cradock. He wrote new musical Miracles at Short Notice (MusicalTalk's pick of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe) andthe award-winning 2007 total Fringe sell-out show Tony Blair – the Musical (“runs the melodic gamut from near-Weillian severity to knowingly schmaltzy balladry, and is packed with rich, tight harmonies” - The Daily Telegraph) and performed in 2006 one-man musical The Rise and Fall of Deon Vonniget (“very funny…fantastically skewed” – the New York Times). Other productions, as both a composer and musical director, include Peter Pan: the Revenge of Captain Hook, Theophilus Scatterdust's Magical Gift, The Borrowers, With Blacks, Lysistrata, NewsRevue and a setting of new words by Andrew Motion for Bush Theatre's Sixty-Six Books at Westminster Abbey. Short film scores include Death Sentence, The Ghost of Kirkton Fell, A Hand in the Bush and Savage Mountain. He was composer-in-residence at Bedford School and is Director of Music at Westminster Abbey Choir School.  
One of Canada’s foremost organists and church musicians, Matthew Larkin has forged a successful career in many musical forums, including as choral and orchestral conductor, composer and arranger, accompanist and recording artist. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Caelis Academy Ensemble, Ottawa, Music Director of the Anglican Chorale of Ottawa, Principal Family Conductor of the Ottawa Pops Orchestra, and maintains a busy calendar of recital, conducting, and collaborative projects. Performances this season include conducting Israel in Egypt with Caelis Academy Ensemble, Carmina Burana with Ottawa Choral Society (piano), a solo recital of Messaien’s organ works with Toronto’s Confluence Concerts, as well as Bach’s St. John Passion (organ) with Ottawa Choral Society, and Charpentier’s Messe des morts (organ) with Ottawa Bach Choir. For the past two decades, Matthew has made his home in Ottawa, where he has served as Director of Music of both St. Matthew’s Church and Christ Church Cathedral. Matthew lead the Choir of Men and Boys of Christ Church Cathedral on several cathedral residencies in the UK, including Ely, Salisbury, and St. Paul's Cathedrals, and Westminster Abbey. His extensive liturgical music experience has included appointments at the Church of St. John the Divine, Victoria, St. James' Cathedral, Toronto, and St. Thomas's Church, Toronto. While Music Director of the Ottawa Choral Society (2005–12), Matthew introduced many new works into the choir's repertoire, collaborating frequently with the National Arts Centre. As a choral and orchestral conductor, he has led performances of a wide range of oratorio and symphonic works. A published composer, Matthew Larkin’s music has been performed and recorded worldwide, and he is frequently in demand as an instrumental and choral arranger. He has worked extensively with instrumental ensembles as soloist and guest conductor, and has appeared as organist with the Gabrieli Consort, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Ottawa Symphony, the Victoria Symphony, the Theatre of Early Music, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Matthew Larkin has been featured as solo guest artist and collaborator with many of Canada's summer music festivals, including Ottawa's Chamberfest, the Elora Festival, and the Music and Beyond Festival. A Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, he has concertized throughout Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and China. A native of Oxford, UK, Matthew spent his childhood in Kingston, Ontario, where he received his early musical instruction in singing, piano and organ playing, as well as liturgical composition. He later attended the University of Toronto (as Organ Scholar of Trinity College) where he studied with John Tuttle, and the Royal College of Music, London, where he studied with Nicholas Danby.

Simon Lindley is Organist of Leeds Parish Church and of Leeds Town Hall.

At the City's historic and famous Parish Church his duties included the direction of its world-renowned Choir. He is also Music Director of St Peter's Singers, one of England's leading Chamber Choirs, and has served in that capacity since the foundation of the group in 1977.

Other current conductorships include Sheffield Bach Society, Halifax-based Overgate Hospice Choir and Leeds College of Music Community Choral Society. During the coming season (201011) Simon is Chief Guest Conductor of Doncaster Choral Society. He is pianist to St Peter's (Leeds Parish Church) Church of England Primary School, Burmantofts.

Senior Lecturer in Music at Leeds Polytechnic from 1976 to 1987, Simon was in 1988 appointed to the new post of Senior Assistant Music Officer for Leeds City Council's [then] Learning and Leisure Department, working on a kaleidoscopic diversity of productions in the office of the award-winning Leeds International Concert Season – notably weekly Town Hall Lunchtime Recitals, programmes for the Saturday symphony and choral concerts and as Artistic Advisor to the Leeds Summer Heritage Festivals from 1989.

Before moving to Yorkshire thirty-five years ago, Simon was organist to several famous London Churches [notably St Anne & St Agnes and St Olave, Hart Street, in the City], Organ Tutor at the Royal School of Church Music's College of St Nicolas – then at Addington Palace, Croydon – and held posts at Westminster and St Albans Cathedrals and as Director of Music to St Albans School.

At St Albans, he was the first full-time assistant to the legendary Dr Peter Hurford OBE.

A notable 1969 début recital at Westminster Cathedral, and his acclaimed live broadcast from the 1975 Proms of the Elgar Sonata at the Royal Albert Hall established his reputation as a player of distinctive style. This reputation has been enhanced by an extensive discography including two best-selling Naxos CDs [French Organ Music from Leeds Parish Church and Handel Concertos with Northern Sinfonia] and an award-winning performance of the fiendish solo part in Khachaturian's Organ Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos conducted by Feyodor Gluschenko and recorded live at a concert in Leeds Town Hall.

Also for Chandos he has made a number of critically praised CDs as accompanist to cornet virtuoso Phillip McCann in the series The World's Most Beautiful Melodies. Simon's playing is also to be heard on many recordings by the Orchestra of Opera North - most recently with Paul Daniel in a Walton CD including Belshazzar's Feast and the 1937 and 1953 Coronation Marches, and in Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle under Richard Farnes.

As an orchestral organist, he has worked – and continues to work – with all the leading British orchestras, and very regularly as organist for concerts by Huddersfield Choral Society. He remains one of very few players regularly playing full oratorio organ accompaniments without orchestra. Recent solo work has included the Poulenc concerto with the Orchestra of Opera North and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. There have been recent performances of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony with the RLPO and, on a UK Tour, with the Warsaw Philharmonic. He undertook a similar tour in 2007 with Maestro Paul Freeman and the Czech Philharmonic.

In the 70s' and 80's, Simon worked as Chorus Master to two of the West Riding's most famous adult choruses – Halifax Choral Society under Dr Donald Hunt OBE and Leeds Philharmonic Society with Meredith Davies.  He still conducts Leeds Philharmonic on a regular basis for the annual Lord Mayor's Carol Concerts at Leeds Town Hall and is a life Vice-President of both choirs.

President of the Royal College of Organists from 2000 to 2003 and of the Incorporated Association of Organists from 2003 to 2005, Simon is Secretary of the Church Music Society – a position he has held since 1991.

As a choral conductor, his work is to be heard on many recordings and broadcasts with the famous Choir of Leeds Parish Church whose director he has been since early 1975. Two trail-blazing Amphion CD's of the two monodramas by doyen of British composers and former Minster Organist at York, Dr Francis Jackson OBE - Daniel in Babylon and A Time of Fire [Scenes from Tyndale's Dream] - have attracted widespread critical acclaim; these historic performances, recorded in Leeds Parish Church, feature the composer at the organ, actor-dramatist John Stuart Anderson and St Peter's Singers under Simon Lindley's direction.

Personalia, awards and achievements: Born in London, the son of an Anglican priest and a writer and the grandson of Belgian poet and art historian Professor Emile Cammaerts, Simon was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford and in London at the Royal College of Music, studying organ, piano and voice. He is an Associate of the Royal College and a Graduate of the Royal Schools of Music [London].

He comes from a musical family. Simon's sister Ruth was for years a leading member of the Choir of the London Oratory. His son Nicolas proved a notable Parish Church Head Chorister and soloist at Leeds and great-grandmother, Marie Brema, colleague and friend of Elgar, sang the role of the angel in the première of  Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius at the 1900 Birmingham Festival.

Work in many capacities for the Royal School of Church Music has included directing RSCM courses on four continents. He is a member of the Royal School's Advisory Board and holds the honorary diplomas of ARSCM [1987], and FRSCM – the latter presented in 2002.

In 2003, Simon succeeded the late Dr Lionel Dakers CBE [RSCM Director from 1973 to 1989] as Chairman of the Friends of the Musicians' Chapel at Church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London - the National Musicians' Church. He is also a Churchwarden of St Sepulchre's.

Additionally on the national musical canvas, he is Chairman of the Ecclesiastical Music Trust [the charitable arm of the English Hymnal Company, a Trust founded by Ralph Vaughan Williams], a founder-trustee of the Sir George Thalben-Ball Memorial Trust and the longest-serving trustee of the John Pilling Trust. Simon is also a member of the Royal Society of Musicians and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Musicians.

Dr Lindley is a Director of the English Hymnal Company and worked extensively on New English Praise, the recently published supplement to The New English Hymnal issued by the Canterbury Press in 2006.

Simon is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and holds the College's coveted Choirmaster's Diploma [CHM]. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College of Music and a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music.

In Autumn of 2001 an honorary doctorate of Leeds Metropolitan University was conferred upon him in recognition of his services to the musical and civic life of his adopted city. He is the recipient of Honorary Fellowships from Leeds College of Music, the Guild of Church Musicians, the Guild of Musicians and Singers and, most recently, the Royal School of Church Music.  In Summer 2005 he received the Freedom of the City of London, where he began his career as an organist over forty years ago and in the Spring of 2006 he was the recipient of the coveted Spirit of Leeds award from Leeds Civic Trust.

A number of Simon's small-scale compositions and carol settings for worship services have achieved widespread provenance. A very popular setting of Ave Maria is sung and recorded very widely in and by quires and places where they sing and his carol-arrangements include Now the green blade riseth – used very widely in churches, cathedrals and chapels of all denominations at Eastertide. Katherine Jenkins' acclaimed CD Sacred Arias includes a performance of Simon's Ave Maria.

His interests include writing, printing and typography, cooking, travel - especially rail travel - and local history.

Simon lives at the Moravian Settlement in Fulneck near Pudsey at the confluence of the West Riding rural and industrial heartlands. He is currently Grand Organist to the United Grand Lodge of England and to the Masonic Province of Yorkshire, West Riding.

He has four children and two grandchildren: Nicolas, the eldest son – with two children of his own – lives and works in Florida, USA; Dominic is Senior Economic Policy Advisor to the Consumers' Association. Benedict – a stalwart of LPC Choir Tours – holds at BSc in computer science from Leeds Metropolitan University and works in IT. Rebecca is currently recently returned to Leeds, having recently graduated from the University of Northumbria.

Teena Lyle is a professional percussionist and keyboard player and has toured worldwide with some of the greatest names in rock, pop and blues.
Chris Manners was Director of Music at All Saints, Weston-Super-Mare, Chairman of the Bath & Wells Diocesan Choral Association, and past Chairman of the Somerset Organists' & Choirmasters' Association.
Philip Marshall was an English cathedral organist and composer. Marshall was born in Brighouse, Yorkshire. He served in the Royal Army Service Corps during World War II and was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Organists in 1946. He was the organist at St Botolph's Church, Boston (1951–1957), Ripon Cathedral (1957–1966) and Lincoln Cathedral (1966–1986). At Ripon, he created the cathedral choir school. His compositions included liturgical works, vocal compositions and instrumental works including a Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. He was awarded the BMus and DMus degrees through examination at Durham University, in the years 1950 and 1955 respectively. Photo credit: Nick Philp.

Matthew Martin is Precentor and Director of College Music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. He read Music at Magdalen College, Oxford before studying at the Royal Academy of Music and with Marie-Claire Alain in Paris. From 2015-2020 he was Director of Music at Keble College, Oxford and Artistic Director of the Keble Early Music Festival. 

Matthew spent much of his early life immersed in cathedral music and in 2010, after six years as Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, he decided to focus more on composition. Since then he has been commissioned to write music for the The Tallis Scholars, the choirs of Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, The Gabrieli Consort and The Sixteen. Matthew won the Liturgical category in the 2013 British Composer Awards, and the first disc of his choral music (Jubilate Deo) was recorded by Daniel Hyde and The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford (Opus Arte/2014).

More recently, he has written for the Cheltenham Music Festival (Trumpet Sonata) and The Tallis Scholars (Lamentations of Jeremiah). His Rose Magnificat for Paul McCreesh and The Gabrieli Consort won the Choral category in the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Awards. Earlier in 2019, he was asked to write a festival anthem (In the midst of thy Temple) for the choir of Westminster Abbey, marking the 750th anniversary of its refounding, and a test piece for organ (Triptych) for the 2019 St Albans International Organ Competition. 

from The Telegraph: Colin Mawby, who died aged 83, was a conductor, composer and organist known for his love of polyphony, his engaging personality and his enthusiasm for choral singing; he played for the Queen at St Paul’s Cathedral, President Kennedy at Westminster Cathedral and two popes at St Peter’s in Rome. From 1961 Mawby was master of music at Westminster Cathedral, where he tried in vain to resist the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, regarding them as leaving Catholic music “in an unsatisfactory state”. He also faced a constant battle for funding: while the boys’ choir was financed by the diocese of Westminster and by school fees, the men’s choir was financed by the cathedral, which struggled to meet their modest honorariums. Despite such issues absorbing his time, Mawby continued to lead his choristers in the daily offices of the Church with professionalism while championing composers such as Lennox Berkeley, the premiere of whose Five Part Mass, commissioned by Cardinal Heenan, he directed in 1964. Mawby’s tenure ended after 14 years in a dispute about musical policy and the future of the cathedral choir school that was aggravated by personality conflicts. Matters came to a head shortly after Cardinal Heenan’s Requiem in 1975, after which Mawby was asked not to carry out his duties in the cathedral, although he was involved in Cardinal Hume’s installation in 1976. In 1979 he was succeeded by Stephen Cleobury, who died two days before him.
Mawby became a central figure to choral music in Ireland, starting the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir and Cór na nÓg, the broadcaster’s children’s choir, and developing the RTÉ Chamber Choir. Colin John Beverley Mawby was born in Portsmouth on May 9 1936, the son of Bernard Mawby, a Roman Catholic convert, and his wife Enid (née Vaux). He was educated at St Swithun’s Primary School, Portsmouth, but his mother’s death when he was three, and the Luftwaffe’s blitz of the city, made him an unruly child. Although a conventional boarding school was beyond his father’s means, young Colin had perfect pitch and was one of the first choristers when Cardinal Griffin reopened Westminster Cathedral choir school in January 1946. He sang for 14 services a week in repertoire that was largely plainchant and polyphony, recalling how by the age of 12 he was “very fortunate” to be assisting George Malcolm, the master of music, in the organ loft. Thanks to Malcolm’s contacts Mawby entered the Royal College of Music at the early age of 15. He was choirmaster at a couple of London churches and at Plymouth Cathedral before returning at 23 to Westminster Cathedral as assistant to Francis Cameron, Malcolm’s successor. Cameron left after two years, whereupon Mawby became master of music.
After parting company with the cathedral Mawby, who also taught at Trinity College and directed an amateur choir, re-emerged in 1978 at Sacred Heart Church, Wimbledon, his last church appointment. Around that time he wrote an article articulating how the church’s liturgical changes had caused so much anguish. “We have seen many extraordinary advances since Vatican II, but also the destruction of much that was good,” he wrote, urging fellow Catholics to “see what of the old can be incorporated into the new”. Meanwhile, a nun in the amateur choir drew his attention to an advert for the post of choral director at RTÉ in Dublin. Despite no previous connection with Ireland he settled happily there. Matters were eventually smoothed over at Westminster Cathedral and his return visits were well received. It was not until he was 52, soon after the birth of his first son, that Mawby took up composition seriously: “I remember going into his bedroom and looking at his crib and thinking to myself, ‘I have to support this baby and I have to get him through university, I have to educate and clothe him. How am I going to do this?’ I thought, ‘The only thing I can do is compose.’ So I decided to sit down and seriously work at composition.”
His output was prolific, including masses, motets and hymn tunes, as well as two secular operas for young people. “Religious belief is fundamental to my work,” he said. “Without faith I couldn’t compose.”
In 2006 he conducted his 70th birthday concert in Ireland, expressing delight at having no responsibility for its planning. “All I do is wave my arms,” he said. “I don’t have to organise anything, it’s all done for me … why didn’t I think of this years ago?” From 1994 to 2017 he published Vivace!, a newsletter for church choirs. Mawby, was awarded a papal knighthood in 2006.
Born in London, 1951, Cecilia McDowall has won many awards and been eight times short-listed for the British Composer Awards. In 2014 she won the British Composer Award for Choral Music. Much of McDowall’s choral music is performed worldwide, as well as her orchestral music. Recent important commissions include When time is broke (Three Shakespeare Songs) for the BBC Singers and Adoro te devote for Westminster Cathedral Choir, London, A Prayer to St John the Baptist for St John’s College, Cambridge and O sing unto the Lord for King’s College, Cambridge. Three Latin Motets were recorded by the renowned American choir, Phoenix Chorale, conductor, Charles Bruffy; this Chandos recording, Spotless Rose, won a Grammy award and was nominated for Best Classical Album. The National Children’s Choir of Great Britain commissioned a work focusing on ‘children in conflict’, called Everyday Wonders: The Girl from Aleppo. This cantata is based on the real-life escape of Nujeen Mustafa (who is wheelchair-bound) and her sister from war-torn Aleppo and has been much performed. Wimbledon Choral Society commissioned the Da Vinci Requiem, to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death in May 2019; this large-scale work was premiered by the choir and The Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, London. McDowall’s works are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio and readily available on CD. In 2013 Cecilia McDowall received an Honorary Doctorate from Portsmouth University and in 2017 McDowall was selected for an Honorary Fellow award by the Royal School of Church Music. In 2020 CDs of her music will be recorded on the Delphian, Naxos and Somm labels.
Philip studied at the Royal College of Music in London where he won the Walford Davies Prize for Organ Playing and the Limpus, Turpin, and Read Prizes in the Royal College of Organists’ exams. He holds a Bachelor in Music degree from the University of Durham and, more recently, he was awarded Honorary Fellowships by the Royal School of Church Music, the Guild of Church Musicians, and the Academy of St Cecilia for his services to Church Music. After graduation, he taught at Eton College, moving to Canterbury Cathedral in 1968 as Assistant Organist, and in 1974 to Guildford as Organist and Master of the Choristers. In 1983 he became Organist and Master of the Music at York Minster, succeeding Dr Francis Jackson. When he retired from the Minster in 2008 he was appointed Organist Emeritus, and the Archbishop of York awarded him the Order of St William, an honour entirely within his gift. As a composer, he has written extensively, primarily music for choir and organ, but also music for chamber ensembles.
Anthony was born in France and has sung in various choirs since attending school in East Anglia. He has written music in a broad range of classical forms including symphonies, canticles, piano pieces and chamber music, but choral works dominate his output. He has a particular interest in Latin motets and Gregorian chant, with French neoclassicism and Bruckner foremost among his influences. Anthony's works have been performed in Norwich and Ripon cathedrals, Paisley Abbey and in Edinburgh, where he now lives.
James O’Donnell is the Abbey’s Director of Music and principal conductor of the Abbey Choir. He is the head of the Abbey music department and is responsible for all musical aspects of the Abbey’s work. Internationally recognised as a conductor and organ recitalist, James has performed all over the world, including the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and throughout Europe, and appeared in the BBC Proms and at many other festivals. Recent engagements have included Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Royal Festival Hall, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and released on CD on the LPO Live label, and solo recitals in the United States, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands. Before taking up his appointment at Westminster Abbey in January 2000, James was a junior exhibitioner at the Royal College of Music and then Organ Scholar of Jesus College, Cambridge.  He was appointed Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, where he became Master of Music in 1988.  Under his direction the Choir of Westminster Cathedral won the Gramophone ‘Record of the Year’ award (for its Hyperion disc of masses by Frank Martin and Pizzetti in 1998), and a Royal Philharmonic Society award (1999), both unprecedented for a cathedral choir. As soloist and director James has worked with many of Britain’s leading ensembles. He is Music Director of St James’ Baroque and appears regularly with the BBC Singers. He is Visiting Professor of Organ and of Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music and was President of the Royal College of Organists from 2011–13. He is an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge and Doctor of Music honoris causa of the University of Aberdeen.
David read Music at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. After his Master's degree, he taught for some years in independent schools before being appointed Director of Music at St George's Anglican Cathedral in Cape Town, with responsibility for the cathedral's overall programme of both liturgical and secular music. He returned to independent education in April 2013 and is now Head of Music and Head of Culture at Epworth School in Pietermaritzburg. His compositions are mainly choral, many of them written for specific occasions or for the particular choirs he has worked with.
Francis Pott has acquired an international reputation over the past thirty years. His dramatic, challenging music unites a distinctive personal voice with a highly-disciplined but versatile technique rooted in a keen awareness of the past. To date his works (including a steady flow of major commissions) have been heard in concert and on radio across the UK and in over forty countries worldwide. They have been published by such major houses as Ricordi [UK], Novello [Music Sales], United Music Publishers and Oxford University Press. In December 2013 Francis signed an exclusive agreement with Edition Peters (London, Frankfurt, Leipzig and New York) which entails publication of all his future choral and organ works and of his hitherto-unpublished back-catalogue. An increasing range of his piano and chamber music is published by Composers Edition. A highly personal harmonic voice lies at the heart of Francis’s style. His output includes many solo piano and chamber compositions, with a strong commitment also to solo song. However, he has attracted particular attention hitherto for his organ music and sacred choral works. In both he has harnessed fifteenth– and sixteenth-century polyphonic techniques to a distinctively recognisable idiom. An unusually rigorous use of motivic counterpoint, allied to a concern with the symphonic methods of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, has found favour in Britain and also particularly in the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany and Scandinavia. Francis’s sound, difficult to pigeon-hole, has been compared in the press with composers as diverse as Nielsen, Barber, Janacek, Messiaen, Martin, Vaughan Williams, Tippett, Simpson and even Fauré, though it could be mistaken for none of these and the sheer diversity of this list is probably more indicative than any single name on it. Francis began musical life as a chorister at New College, Oxford. He held Open Music Scholarships at Winchester College and then at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood while also pursuing piano studies privately in London with the distinguished British artist, Hamish Milne. After six years teaching in the independent secondary sector, he became a tutor in composition for the University of Oxford, gradually expanding his remit until he was teaching for over half of its colleges. Throughout the 1990s Francis was John Bennett Lecturer in Music at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and also a bass lay clerk in the Choir of Winchester Cathedral, under the directorship of Dr David Hill. In 2001 he relinquished these roles to become Head of London College of Music, University of West London, later leading Research across the University’s wider Faculty of Arts and acceding in 2007 to its first ever Chair in Composition. In addition to his current Professorship he holds MA and MusB degrees from the University of Cambridge, a Fellowship of London College of Music [FLCM], a PhD and a Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy [PFHEA]. In September 2018 Francis voluntarily semi-retired from his university post in order to devote more time to composition. Winner of four national and two international composition awards, in 1997 Francis received First Prize in the piano solo section of the S.S. Prokofiev Composing Competition in Moscow, for his Toccata (dedicated to his friend, the legendary French-Canadian virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin). In 2004 he was awarded Honorable Mention in the Barlow International Award for Composition (USA), placed 2nd in a worldwide field of 362 professional composers behind his friend and compatriot, Judith Bingham. In 2006 and 2011 he was a nominated finalist in the BASCA Annual Composer Awards, staged in association with the BBC. In August 1999 A Song on the End of the World, his oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, was hailed in The Times as ‘thrilling music, …contemporary and original, …impressive and profoundly affecting’ , and in The Birmingham Post  as ‘a stunning première, …apocalyptic and luminous’. In 2006 his further oratorio for tenor soloist, double chorus and organ, The Cloud of Unknowing, was acclaimed by Richard Morrison in The Times:  ‘A sincere, intelligent and admirably unsensational meditation on the darkness at the heart of man.  …One sometimes writes, hyperbolically, of a performance moving one to tears. But at the end of Francis Pott’s The Cloud of Unknowing, genuine tears were shed’. Francis’ recent output includes Word, a half-hour meditative sequence for chorus and organ which interrogates the meaning and message of the Gospels in a postmodern age, and which intersperses five poems of R.S.Thomas with verses from St John’s Prologue in the New Revised Standard Version; also a large-scale Mass for eight parts, recorded in 2011 on the Naxos label by its dedicatees, the Oxford-based chamber choir Commotio under their conductor, Matthew Berry. Concert music has included Einzige Tage, a song cycle setting German translations of Russian poems by Pasternak and Akhmatova, and a half-hour Sonata for viola and piano; these two works were released together on CD in December 2014. Recent projects also include two major works for chorus and orchestra, while current activity embraces concertos for violin and for cor anglais and further works for organ and for piano. Francis remains active as a piano soloist, accompanist and chamber partner and maintains a particular research interest in the oeuvre of the émigré Russian composer-pianist, Nikolai Medtner. Francis Pott is married with two adult children (both following him in musical directions) and lives in a village on the outskirts of Winchester.

Jonathan Rathbone was a chorister at Coventry Cathedral and later, a choral scholar at Christ’s College Cambridge, where he read mathematics. He gained a second degree at the Royal Academy of Music where he studied composition with John Gardner. Whilst there, he wrote a children’s musical called The Selfish Giant, and the music for a production of Dog Beneath The Skin at the Half Moon Theatre with director Julian Sands. He was signed as a song-writer with Noel Gay Music.

He sang with St Bride’s Choir, Fleet Street and the BBC Singers before joining the Swingle Singers in 1984. He was musical director of the group for eight of the twelve years he sang with them, during which time he created the majority of their arrangements, both a cappella and with orchestra. He has worked with many of the world’s leading musicians including Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio. John Dankworth, Stephan Grapelli, Beatles producer, George Martin and French pop star, Etienne Daho.

He left the group in 1996 to spend more of his time writing. He has orchestrated for Sir Cliff Richard and Michael Ball and more recently for Katherine Jenkins, Lesley Garrett and Wynne Evans (“Go Compare!”). He still travels all over Europe to vocal courses, to work with various vocal ensembles and to adjudicate choral competitions. In recent years he has lectured and run workshops on close harmony, improvisation, choral conducting, vocal arranging and choral techniques.

He is now an in-house composer with Peters Edition. He conducts three choirs in north London, for whom has written numerous pieces, including Night of Wonder, Swithun’s Watery Tale, a festive Christmas cantata entitled Mr Fezziwig’s Christmas Party and a serious piece Christmas Truce telling of the truce of 1914. Most recently he has written two larger works for choir and piano - Patricius! which tells dramatically, the life story of St Patrick, and A Day at the Fair which tells of all the goings-on at a typical English Fair about 100 years ago.

His largest scale work (about 100 minutes) has just been recorded by the Vasari Singers (who also commissioned it). Under the Shadow of His Wing is a reworking of the Vespers Service

In addition to his choral writing, Jonathan’s string quartet, More Fools than Wise, written for the Fitzwilliam Quartet, has been performed all over the world.

Most recently, he was commissioned by the King of Qatar to re-orchestrate The Crown of India Suite by Elgar for a small ensemble and also for an ensemble of 12 harps!

Born at West Wickham, Greater London, England, Alan Ridout studied briefly at the Guildhall School of Music before commencing four years of study at the Royal College of Music, London with Herbert Howells and Gordon Jacob. He was later taught by Michael Tippett, Peter Fricker and (under a Dutch government scholarship) Henk Badings. He went on to teach at the Royal College of Music, the University of Birmingham, the University of Cambridge, the University of London, and at The King's School, Canterbury. He also broadcast musical talks on the radio. His works include church, orchestral and chamber music, much of it for children. His style is mostly tonal, though in younger life he wrote some microtonal works. Alan Ridout worked regularly with the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra (LSSO). Ridout's Three Pictures of Picasso, originally written for the National Youth Orchestra, was performed by the LSSO at a De Montfort Hall concert conducted by Rudolf Schwarz in 1964 in the presence of the composer. Ridout then composed his second symphony for the LSSO and dedicated it to Michael Tippett to mark his 60th birthday (though Ridout did not hold Tippett in high regard). The symphony was first performed in 1965 and also featured in the television programme Overture with Beginners (see video link below). The 1967 Leicestershire Schools Music Festival included a number of LSSO commissions and in May that year Ridout’s dance drama Funeral Games for a Greek Warrior made its debut at De Montfort Hall. In July 1967 the LSSO made its first commercial disc for the Pye Golden Guinea label and Ridout responded to a request for a short work for inclusion on the disc by composing a lively Concertante Music. The work’s debut took place on a record rather than at a public concert. Concertante Music was then taken on the LSSO tour of Denmark and Germany in September 1967. Alan Ridout lived for much of his life in Canterbury. He died in Caen, France. This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors and is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License. If you find the biography content factually incorrect or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia.
John Rutter is an English composer and conductor, associated mainly with choral music and active internationally for many years. His larger choral works, GloriaRequiemMagnificatMass of the ChildrenThe Gift of Life, and Visions, are widely performed around the world, and many of his shorter pieces such as The Lord bless you and keep youFor the beauty of the earthLook at the world, and All things bright and beautiful have become ‘standards’. He has composed or arranged many Christmas carols. He established the Collegium record label in 1983 as a vehicle for recordings with his professional chamber choir the Cambridge Singers, and they have made over fifty recordings. He has enjoyed a long association with Clare College, Cambridge – first as student, then Director of Music, later as parent, and recording producer for their renowned choir.
Marcus Sealy attended the Royal College of Music where he  studied organ with Richard Popplewell and  harpsichord with  Dr  C Thornton Lofthouse. He taught music and, subsequently, French at Kingswood School in Bath. He was assistant organist of Bath Abbey from 1974 to 2017 where, in addition to supporting the work of the church, he gave well-attended recitals and was heard on many recordings. As regular accompanist/organist to Bath Bach Choir, he has played for concerts and recordings in many cathedrals and other venues, at home and abroad.
Peter Smith has been teaching music in schools and serving as a church organist and choirmaster for more than fifty years. He is currently Director of Music at St Mary’s Parish Church in the town of Ware in Hertfordshire. In summer 2020 he won Tim Knight's Organ Music for Quiet Moments Competition with his piece A Solemn Sarabande for these distracted times.
Paul Spicer began his musical training as a chorister at New College, Oxford. He studied with Herbert Howells and Richard Popplewell (organ) at the Royal College of Music in London, winning the top organ award (the Walford Davies Prize) in his final year.
Paul is best known as a choral conductor, partly through the many CDs he made with the Finzi Singers for Chandos records. He conducted Bach Choirs in Chester and Leicester before moving to conduct the Bach Choir in Birmingham in 1992. He conducted the Whitehall Choir in London between 2000 and 2017 and is Conductor of the Petersfield Musical Festival. He is a regular guest conductor with the BBC Singers. He taught at the Royal College of Music in London between 1995 and 2008. He now teaches choral conducting at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where he also directs both chamber choirs, and at Oxford and Durham Universities. The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s principal chamber choir has an increasing recording presence. It’s first disc To Music was outstandingly reviewed by MusicWeb International who described it as ‘one of the finest discs to have come my way in a long time’. Their recording of music by James MacMillan and Kenneth Leighton was attended by MacMillan and was released in April 2011 and has received five star reviews. Part songs by Ireland and Delius were recorded for Somm Records followed in 2012. A first ever recording of Stanford part songs was released July 2013 including a number of world premiere recordings. Their disc of rare Howells was Editor's Choice in The Gramophone in December 2014. The complete choral works of Samuel Barber was released in 2015 with the English Visionaries disc of music by Vaughan Williams, Holst and Howells following in 2016. John Joubert's 90th birthday in 2017 was celebrated in their next disc with many premier recordings. The music of Richard Rodney Bennett with many more first recordings is their most recent release. Until July 2001 Paul Spicer was Artistic Director of the Lichfield International Arts Festival and the Abbotsholme Arts Society, posts he relinquished in order to pursue a freelance musical career. He was Senior Producer for BBC Radio 3 in the Midlands until 1990 and today is in considerable demand as a composer. He has also been a much sought-after recording producer and, in particular, has produced over forty recordings with the organist Christopher Herrick. The first complete recording of Paul Spicer’s large-scale Easter Oratorio, originally commissioned as part of the Lichfield Festival Millennium celebrations, was released in 2005 and has received considerable critical acclaim, the work being recognised by Gramophone Magazine as 'the best of its kind to have appeared... since Howells's Hymnus Paradisi'. It was also chosen as Editor’s Choice in the same magazine. The Deciduous Cross, a work for choir and winds based on five poems by RS Thomas and premiered in June 2003, was commissioned for Paul's tenth anniversary as conductor of the Birmingham Bach Choir and was recently recorded by the Whitehall Choir. It was described as ‘a deeply-felt composition, almost intoxicatingly melodic throughout to create a chaste kind of spiritual ecstasy in which elements of reviving nature figure strongly’. A recording of his complete works for organ, played by Robert Sharpe, was released in 2006 from Truro Cathedral, and a recording of his shorter choral works performed by the choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge, was made in 2008. Individual works appear on discs by various artists and his Kiwi Fireworks for organ has been recorded five times. Paul’s new large-scale choral and orchestral work, Advent Oratorio, to another libretto by renowned New Testament scholar, Bishop Tom Wright, who wrote the text for the Easter Oratorio, was premiered in Lichfield Cathedral on 5 December 2009 and received the first performance in its newly revised version in 2016. His most recent major commission is a choral symphony, Unfinished Remembering, commemorating the centenary of the first World War in 2014. The poet Euan Tait wrote the libretto. The work was premiered in Symphony Hall, Birmingham to great acclaim in September 2014. 2015 onwards saw the publication of a whole series of Paul's choral works by Boosey & Hawkes. 2017 saw the publication of all his organ music by Trumph publications in Sweden. Paul Spicer's highly acclaimed biography of his composition teacher, Herbert Howells, was published in August 1998 was reprinted twice and republished in 2014 and again in 2016. His full-scale biography of the composer Sir George Dyson was published by Boydell Press in 2014. He was awarded a major grant by the British Academy to take a sabbatical period to further the research for this work. He is now working on a biography of Sir Arthur Bliss for the Crowood Press and has been awarded another British Academy grant to further research for this project. His English Pastoral Partsongs volume for OUP is widely used. As a writer he has written countless articles for many periodicals and is a contributor to the Dictionary of National Biography. He has twice written an overview of all James MacMillan’s choral music commissioned by Boosey & Hawkes, his publishers. Boosey and Hawkes commissioned a practical guide to the choral music of Benjamin Britten for his centenary in 2013 and Paul has given many lectures and workshops of Britten's music during the centenary year. Besides these major projects Paul Spicer is in great demand for his choral workshops which take him all over the world. In July 2011 he gave a the first Proms Extra choral workshop on Havergal Brian’s giant Gothic Symphony for the Proms. He runs a series of annual choral courses under the banner of his Foundation, the English Choral Experience. These take place at Dore Abbey in the Golden Valley of Herefordshire, in Europe at Easter, and a variety of locations around the UK for the Camerata weekends for expert ameatur singers. These include Orford, Suffolk, St. Cross Hospital, Winchester and Durham Castle. (www.englishchoralexperience.co.uk). He is a broadcaster, lecturer and popular speaker. He visits the USA most years as a visiting lecturer and conductor at the University of South Carolina and Trinity Cathedral, Columbia. Paul Spicer is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Honorary Research Fellow of Birmingham University, an Honorary Fellow of University College, Durham, an Honorary Fellow of Birmingham Conservatoire, Honorary Fellow of Victoria College of Music and Drama (London), Lay Member of Lichfield Cathedral Chapter, Trustee of the Gerald Finzi Trust, Chairman of the Sir George Dyson Trust, Vice-President of the Herbert Howells Society, and Visiting Fellow to the Loughborough Endowed Schools.
English composer Will Todd is well known for his beautiful and exciting music. His work encompasses choral works large and small, opera, musical theatre and orchestral pieces, as well as jazz compositions and chamber works. His anthem, The Call of Wisdom, was performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations with a TV audience of 45 million people. His breakthrough work, Mass in Blue (originally titled Jazz Mass), has been performed hundreds of times all over the world. His arrangement of Amazing Grace was performed at President Obama’s Inauguration Day prayer service in 2013 and as part of the BBC’s Nelson Mandela Thanksgiving Service. He has collaborated with award winning choirs The Sixteen and Tenebrae, as well as with the Welsh National Opera, Opera North, Opera Holland Park, BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, The Halle Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, The Bach Choir, St Martin’s Voices. His discography includes best selling choral discs Lux Et Veritas and The Call of Wisdom, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Mass in Blue, Ode to a Nightingale, Passion Music and Jazz Missa Brevis all on the Signum Classic label. His clarinet concerto recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Emma Johnson was released in 2016His music is regularly broadcast on Classic FM, as well as on BBC Radio 3. Will Todd’s music is valued for its melodic intensity and harmonic skill, often incorporating jazz colours, and his choral music is much in demand from amateur as well as professional performers. Recent commissions include an oratorio for The Bach Choir written with former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen and operas for Welsh National Opera and Opera North.

Having begun his musical education as Head Chorister of his parish church choir in Kent Matthew went on to read Music and English at Lancaster University where he studied singing with Mary Hitch and directed the University Chamber Choir.

While training as a teacher in Canterbury Matthew became director of the Kent Youth Barbershop and his college chamber choir.

Specialising in oratorio and English song, Matthew has performed as a soloist in St John’s Smith Square, St Martin in the Fields and on choral tours of France and Italy. As well as deputising with several London choirs and Canterbury Cathedral Choir he sings with the Vasari Singers, one of Britain’s leading chamber choirs, and has sung solo baritone with them in numerous performances and for several recordings.

Matthew is also a composer and arranger mainly of liturgical choral music. His two sets of Versicles and Responses are published by Shorter House and have been performed by the Vasari Singers in Bath Abbey and Chester Cathedral.

Until August 2017, Matthew was Director of Music at St Dunstan’s College, Lewisham. He has recently been ordained and is Assistant Curate at St John the Evangelist, Ranmoor, in the Diocese of Sheffield.