2012-2013 Season Conductors
Principal Conductor: Sarah Tenant-Flowers
Sarah Tenant-Flowers
studied music at Oxford and Durham Universities and conducting with Sir Charles Groves, Peter Erdei from the Liszt Academy, Laszlo Heltay and Alan
Hazeldine. One of the most versatile choral conductors of her generation, Sarah has worked with an impressive array of professional and amateur
ensembles, both overseas and throughout the UK, including the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, Cape Town Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, the
Kantorei der Friedenskirche of Düsseldorf, English Baroque Choir, Reading Bach Choir, Nottingham University Choir, Granada International
Festival Choir (assisting Harry Christophers), Guildford, Croydon and Sevenoaks Philharmonic Choirs and Harlow Chorus.
She currently works with the BBC Symphony chorus as guest chorusmaster, in addition to holding posts as artistic director of professional choir Singscape, Associate Music Director of the Brandenburg Sinfonia, co-director with Janet Lincé of Encoro, director of community and children's choirs and lecturer in choral conducting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Orchestras and period ensembles with which she has worked include the Britten Sinfonia, City of London Sinfonia, City of London Chamber Players, Hilliard Ensemble, Ensemble Bash, Fiori Musicali and the Alberni and Brandenburg Symphony Orchestras.
Sarah is a popular workshop leader with Britain's choirs and leading choral organisations including the Association of British Choral Directors (ABCD), an organisation which she co-founded, Sing for Pleasure (SfP) and making Music. She regularly works as an adjudicator for choral festivals including the Leith Hill Music Festival and Dublin's Feis Ceoil and former arts management posts include administrator of the Menuhin International Violin and televised Choir of the Year competitions, Artistic Director of Music at Oxford and General Manager of The Sixteen conducted by Harry Christophers, with whom she has worked worldwide.
In 2008 Sarah made her debut with Ireland's National Chamber Choir in a broadcast performance of Pärt's Passio with the Hilliard Ensemble for RTÉ's Living Music Festival. In the same year she also featured as conducting mentor to actor and comedian, Bradley Walsh, on BBC2's popular TV series 'Maestro' and has subsequently worked with Blur guitarist Alex James. Sarah has broadcast several times on BBC Radios 3 and 4 and records regularly for Classical Communications. Forthcoming projects include the recording of works by Bernard Rose, Howells, Vaughan Williams and Cassia, further performances of contemporary and 16th century female voice repertoire with new ensemble, Papagena, which was launched last year at London's National Portrait Gallery and a collaboration with composer Errollyn Wallen. For further details visit www.tenantflowers.com
Bob Chilcott
Described by the Observer newspaper as
"a contemporary hero of British Choral Music", Bob Chilcott has worked tirelessly over the past thirteen years as a full-time composer and choral conductor. He has over 125 pieces published by Oxford University Press, and versions of several of his pieces are published in German, Swedish, Norwegian, Slovenian, and Icelandic.
Over the past two years two larger-scale works have been premièred - Salisbury Vespers in May 2009 by 600 musicians in Salisbury Cathedral, and in March 2010 Requiem was premièred by Nicholas Cleobury, The Oxford Bach Choir, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to great critical acclaim. The cantata The Making of the Drum has been performed across the globe, as has A Little Jazz Mass in both mixed and upper-voice versions, and his catalogue of music for upper- voices has gained a large following throughout the world.
Since 2002 Bob has been Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers in London. He has also conducted many other distinguished choirs including The RIAS Kammerchor in Berlin, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Jauna Musika in Lithuania, The World Youth Choir, The Tower New Zealand Youth Choir, and the Taipei Chamber Singers. Over the coming year he will conduct the Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir and begin a two-year project with The Kyoto Echo Choir in Japan. He regularly leads singing days for communities and schools in Britain, and over the past twelve years has conducted and given workshops in 23 countries worldwide. In 2011 he will be Composer-in- Residence at Festival 500 in Newfoundland, Canada, and will also give workshops at the 9th IFCM World Choral Symposium in Patagonia.
He has two critically acclaimed recordings on the Signum label, The Making of the Drum with the BBC Singers and Making Waves with the women's choir The Sirens. His music has been recorded by many other choirs including King's College Choir, Cambridge, The Cambridge Singers, The Sixteen, Westminster Abbey Choir, Grex Musicus from Helsinki, and The Chamber Choir of Europe. He wrote the title track for the newly-released King's Singers album, Swimming over London and his piece Irish Blessing was featured on the multi-platinum debut album of The Priests.
Peter Hunt
Peter is currently Deputy Head: Vocal Learning and Initial Curriculum at
Berkshire Maestros, the young musicians' trust delivering music education for
8000 young people across the county, having previously been Head of Voice there for four years.
Before that, Peter was Head
of Music at Chipping Norton
Secondary School for nine years and, thanks to his
hard work, the school gained status as a Performing Arts College from September
2004, putting it firmly at the centre of artistic activity in the Chipping
Norton community. From 2000-2002 Peter was also part-time
Advisory Teacher for Oxfordshire's vocal strategy.
Peter studied Music at Dartington College of Arts where he was active in promoting chamber choir singing. Peter has a wide experience of school teaching at primary and secondary levels, and was one of the first Choral Animateurs to be appointed by the British Federation of Young Choirs when their outreach programme began in 1995. He is a keen and versatile choral singer, a passion that began with high-quality experiences in a chamber choir at school, and he has sung in many groups including the New London Chamber Choir, with whom he toured extensively performing professional programmes.
As a choir trainer and conductor, Peter works with all ages and abilities, but regularly with school students. He was co-founder of the highly acclaimed Oxfordshire Youth Chamber Choir, and has been musical director of adult and children's groups over many years. This broad experience of singing work and education has led to publications, and in 1999 he was consultant for the BBC's re-launch of their successful radio series Singing Together. He is the inspiration behind a series of publications with Oxford University Press called Voiceworks - a handbook for singing, which have proved to be extremely popular as a support for anyone wishing to develop singing with groups. Its wealth of eclectic material and useful support teaching notes have made it a significant contributor to the revival of singing in many counties across the UK, and its versatility has led to a total of nine Voiceworks publications. Peter has also collaborated with Bob Chilcott on a new choral series called Songstream with publishers OUP, which presents new and refreshing music from across the world to young choral singers.
Kevin Stannard
Kevin is Head of Music and Principal Lecturer at the Wolverhampton University
School of Sport, Performing Arts and Leisure. He has many interests as a
musician and teacher with strengths in
performance, improvisation, composition, theory, aural and choral music. He has
performed as a pianist, organist and conductor across the UK for over thirty
years and more recently his interests in music education have taken him to
conferences in Malaysia, China and Australia.
He began directing choirs in 1980 and has worked with all ages including massed
choirs of school children at the Wembley Conference Centre; adult choirs such
as the North Cotswold Chamber Choir and close harmony group Two-Apart which he
founded in 1987; student choirs such as the Oxford Gargoyles and the Howlin'
Wolves (University of Wolverhampton Chamber Choir) who won the regional heat of
the Sainsbury's Choir of the Year competition in 2002.
For more information click here