Adam Gorb
Born: Cardiff
Started composing at the age of ten. His first work broadcast on national radio was written when he was fifteen. He studied at Cambridge University (1977-1980) and the Royal Academy of Music (1991-1993) where he graduated with the highest honors including the Principal's Prize. He has been on the staff at the London College of Music and Media, the junior Academy of the Royal Academy of Music and, since 2000 he has been the Head of School of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester .
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Andrew Watts
Born: Middlesex, England
The English counter-tenor, Andrew Watts, studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Geoffrey Mitchell.
Andrew Watts’ operatic engagements include appearances with the Royal Opera Covent Garden, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival and Glyndebourne Touring Opera, the Almeida Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Broomhill Opera in repertoire including Bishop Baldwin Gawain And The Green Knight, title-role in Gluck’s Orpheus And Eurydice, Arsamenes Xerxes, Fairy The Fairy Queen, Third Shepherd in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, James The Last Supper, Oberon A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dimitri Smirnov’s The Lamentations Of Thel, Acmior in Ian McQueen’s Line Of Terror and Camille in Michael Finnissey’s Therese Raquin, Omar Death Of Klinghoffer and Pleasure in Gerald Barry’s Triumph Of Beauty And Deceit. Foreign engagements have included appearances with Staatsoper Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, Teatro La Fenice, De Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp and Ghent, the Vienna Festival, Sydney, Batignano Festival, Henze’s Montepulciano Festival, Lautten Compagney at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, RIAS-Kammerchor Berlin, Banff Centre, Graz Opera, Opéra National du Rhin, Canada and Mexico in repertoire which has included Sorceress and Second Witch Dido And Aeneas, Grace Venus And Adonis, Nutrice L’incoronazione Di Poppea, Jeremy in the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Bählamms Fest, Mystery Man in the world première of Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway, Giasone in the world première of Guarnieri’s Medea, title roles Orfeo ed Euridice and Orlando, Xicotencatle in Paul Barker’s La Malinche, Celinda L’Antiope, the world premiere of Lost Objects, Orlofsky Die Fledermaus, Athamas Semele, Andronico Tamerlano and Claudio Messalina. |
BBC Radio 3: In Tune with Sean Rafferty
Programme exploring all things choral, with performances and special features.
Get in touch:
thechoir@bbc.co.uk
Call: 03700 100 300 |
News, views and an eclectic choice of live and recorded music, plus developments from the arts world |
BBC Singers
The BBC Singers hold a unique position in British musical life, as the BBC's in-house professional chamber choir.
Based at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios, the BBC Singers perform all over the UK and abroad. |
British Composer Awards
The ninth annual British Composer Awards will take place at Stationers' Hall, London on Wednesday 30 November 2011. The Awards are presented by BASCA and sponsored by PRS for Music, in association with BBC Radio 3 providing exclusive broadcast coverage of the Awards. |
Composition Today
Offers a huge range resources exclusively for composers. |
English Pen
English PEN is a registered charity (number 1125610), working to promote literature and human rights. |
Exeter Festival Chorus
Founded in 1993, EFC is a non-professional award-winning choir which sings regularly with professional orchestras and soloists. We plan our programmes to give local audiences a stimulating mix of works within the established choral repertoire together with music that reaches out into the less well-known and the contemporary choral scene. This is our continuing commitment to putting on concerts of exciting choral music, performed to the highest possible standard under the dynamic musical direction of Nigel Perrin, one of the country’s leading choral conductors.
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Saturday 20 November 2010, In an exciting new venture, the EFC will join with The Band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines Lympstone for a Charity Concert entitled Eternal Voices, in aid of the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund. The concert, which will take place in Exeter Cathedral, will be conducted by Nigel Perrin and Lt Col N J Grace RM. |
H Company Hasler (Royal Marines rehabilitation company)
Hasler Company is dedicated to the specific and complex needs of seriously injured and ill Royal Marines who require specially tailored programmes in order to provide additional bespoke support. It is based in HMS Drake, HM Naval Base Devonport, Plymouth, and will be officially opened on Monday 7 September 2009 by the Commander of 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, Brigadier Gordon Messenger. |
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The John Armitage Memorial Trust (JAM) JAM is an exciting, forward-thinking organisation, that was set up to nurture, promote & perform new music in the UK. Founded in 2000, JAM has an annual ‘call for music’, during which anyone, of any age can submit music. From these submissions & an annual commission, JAM creates a concert series that it tours round the UK. |
John McCarthy
When it comes to reporting the world's injustices, news numbs, but art touches, as John McCarthy's libretto – for a concert honouring persecuted writers – has demonstrated.
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I begin my article with the extremely sad news of the death of Musician Huw Morris RVM. Although he was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, his death has still come as a shock to us all. Huw was genuinely one of the most likeable and humble men you could ever wish to meet. I count myself extremely fortunate to have served with, and then become a good friend of Huw’s. A very talented musician, he would always encourage and give valuable advice to senior and younger members of the band. Huw served for 37 years in the Band Service with 33 years in Portsmouth that included 17 year's service on Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia. In 1997 his service was recognised when he was awarded the Royal Victorian Medal for his long and distinguished personal service to Her Majesty the Queen. Previously, only Colour Sergeants and Bandmasters were awarded the RVM; Huw was the first musician to be given that award personally by the Queen. |
Liverpool Philharmonic Ensemble 10/10
Ensemble 10/10 is the contemporary music ensemble of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Founded by cellist Hilary Browning and clarinettist Nicholas Cox, 10/10 gave its first concert on 22 November 1997 at 10.10pm.
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NICHOLAS CLEOBURY is one of Britain’s most experienced and respected conductors. An orchestra and operatic interpreter of flair and imagination, he is also an expert choral conductor, has a passionate commitment to contemporary music and is a brilliant communicator as teacher and lecturer. |
Nigel Perrin
An internationally renowned choral musician and former boy chorister at Ely Cathedral, Nigel Perrin was a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied under Sir David Willcocks. On leaving Cambridge, he became well known as the original top voice of The King's Singers and for eleven years travelled the world on concert tours, recording some twenty-five albums and appearing in countless television shows with artists as diverse as Kiri Te Kanawa and Cliff Richard. This background and experience formed the basis of his current career, conducting, directing choral workshops and summer schools, adjudicating and teaching. He is greatly sought after as an inspiring choral conductor and is much in demand for his instructive and encouraging workshops and masterclasses.
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"Bravo the Onyx!" (Philip Jones) "Onyx Brass come alive as responsive individuals ... supremely virtuoso, resplendent and dramatic, questing and deft...all delivered with a liberated and characterful imagination… some of the most thrilling chamber brass-playing of its kind." (Gramophone Magazine) "Easily the classiest brass ensemble in Britain.....With its scrupulous attention to balance, timbre and nuance of phrasing, it is reminiscent of the Philip Jones quintet in its prime, where total integration of five musical personalities becomes an ensemble that is much more than the sum of its parts....five stars." (BBC Music Magazine) |
Paul Patterson
One of the most-performed British composers of his generation, influenced early in his career by Stravinsky, Hindemith, Bartok and the Polish school. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in his late teens, having studied with Richard Stoker, Elisabeth Lutyens and Richard Rodney Bennett, he wrote several smaller-scale works around this time that became repertoire standards: TIME-PIECE, COMEDY FOR FIVE WINDS; CONVERSATIONS and DIVERSIONS. The experimental choral works KYRIE, GLORIA and REQUIEM also attracted attention. |
| Selwyn College Choir
Selwyn College Chapel Choir has led worship in the College Chapel since its foundation in the last decade of the nineteenth century. For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, the all-male choir of undergraduates was directed by the Organ Scholars, and sang daily Choral Evensong. For occasional larger works, the men borrowed sopranos and altos from Newnham College, the women’s College across the road from Selwyn. The mixed choir, formed in 1976 with the admission of women to Selwyn, now consists of up to twenty-eight singers, Choral Scholars (called Choral Exhibitioners) and volunteers, and the choir’s link with Newnham continues to the present day. Most of the choir members are undergraduates or graduates at Selwyn or Newnham, with a few volunteers from other colleges, and they read a variety of subjects including Music, English, Natural Sciences, and Engineering. The choir is conducted by the Director of Music in Chapel, who is assisted by two undergraduate Organ Scholars.
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The Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, Commando Training Centre Royal Marines is one of five Royal Marines Bands based around the United Kingdom. It can trace its direct historical lineage to 1767 and has changed both home and name several times. As a mark of its succession the band wear a unique cap badge that includes the Prince of Wales’ Plumes awarded to the Plymouth Divisional Band by His Royal Highness in 1920 following a most successful tour of Australasia and the Pacific Islands. The band’s principal role is to provide musical support of the highest professional standard to the Naval Service. They can perform in a wide variety of differing musical combinations that include parade band, windband, symphony orchestra, big band, dance band, jazz band, Corps of Drums and a number of small chamber groups. The players are amongst the most versatile in the world and are appreciated not only for the visual splendour of their ceremonial uniform, with distinctive white helmets, but also for their superb musicianship |
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I. The Marsh 2: Dawn Light 3: Storm 4: Spiritual Haven Set to a specially written text by Ben Kaye, The Fifth Continent derives its inspiration from Kent’s Romney Marsh. It has mused the minds of artists since the 1500’s when William Camden’s “Britannia” labelled it as “A Gift from the Sea”. Consisting of four movements continuously, the work is essentially about the Marsh’s sense of timelessness with its many different moods. Space and physical movement are used as an integral part of the musical structure. A sense of boundless mystery prevails, encompassing a huge range of extremes of ambience, from the dark and austere, to the serene and tranquil via storms of violent winds and high seas. It starts in a bleak limbo, with the solo countertenor singing whilst walking onstage over a low pedal note with dark growls from the lower brass, the sense of remoteness heightened by offstage trumpets and chorus. As the movement unfolds a creeping mist descends where colours are bleached out, the stars can no longer be a point of reference and “horizons are meaningless”.
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Lt John 'JT' Thornton RM, from Ferndown, Dorset, was tragically killed, aged 22, in southern Afghanistan on 30th March 2008. John lived his dream and died doing the job he loved. This charity has been founded with the simple objective that John wanted as his legacy: to encourage and assist young people to 'climb as high as they can dream'. |
The Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund
The Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund exists to maintain the efficiency and 'esprit de corps' of the Royal Marines and to provide benevolence support for those in need. In addition to benevolence work, there are many other calls upon this fund. These range from the provision of wreaths for Rememberance services, support to veterans reunions and the RM Museum to the construction and maintenance of war memorials.
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The conflict between imposing limitations upon myself as a composer and the freedom to break those limitations has often showed me the way during the process of writing. In this work for bass-baritone solo, brass quintet, chorus and organ, I have been lucky enough to be guided by a text that explores these limitations, in this case, those of incarceration. The words by Ben Kaye and John McCarthy are based on the experiences endured by John McCarthy as a prisoner in various Lebanese jails between 1986 and 1991. For nearly all of this period, he had virtually no contact with the outside world – indeed until the final year of his imprisonment, nobody had any idea of whether he was alive or not. |
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In addition to the news below, the site divides into the 5 main areas on the left. Within each area you can access a vast amount of information about wind music and conducting. The homepage changes regularly so come back often.
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