Eltham Choral Society Curriculum Vitae

Peter is the Musical Director of the Eltham Choral Society, the Berkshire Youth Choir and the Music Makers of London. Recent performances have included Mozart's Requiem, Faure's Requiem, Mahler's Symphony no. 2 at the Bridgewater Hall and a project at the Barbican in conjunction with Bob Chilcott and the BBC Singers called Singing in the City. He has worked with other choirs including the Rodolfus Choir, the Whitehall Choir, Dulwich Choral Society and the East Oxford Community Choir.

Peter works regularly as a Chorus Master, most recently with the London Symphony Chorus for a performance of Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas and with the Brighton Festival Chorus and Sir Andrew Davis. His other engagements have included Bach's Mass in B Minor with Peter Schreier, Handel's Messiah, Holst's Planets at St John's Smith Square, Handel's Saul and Vivaldi's Gloria with the Whitehall Choir and Fanshawe's African Sanctus and Carter's Benedicite with the Berkshire Youth Choir as part of the Windsor Festival.

Until recently, Peter was a founder member and singer in Stile Antico, an early music vocal ensemble with whom he recorded on the Harmonia Mundi label. The group won the Friends Prize at the York International Early Music Competition and their first CD, Music For Compline, received the prestigious Diapason D'or and Choque du Monde de la Musique awards, with critics describing it as 'absolutely ravishing – an extraordinary recording'. It was also nominated for a Grammy award. More recently, they have sung at major European festivals, completed a two-week residency at the Dartington International Summer School and toured Europe with Sting as part of his Dowland project Songs from the Labyrinth. They have also been involved in collaborations with the Rose Consort of Viols and the baroque orchestra B'rock. Their latest disc has just won the Gramophone award disc of the year in the Early Music category. Peter has also made appearances with other choirs including the Cambridge Singers and Philharmonia Voices. He studied singing at the Royal College of Music with Neil Mackie and is currently studying singing with Nick Powell.

Peter is also involved in musical education. He recently gave a week of masterclasses in Renaissance Music as part of the International Course for Early Music and Dance at the Luka Sorkocevic music school in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He is a singing teacher at Eton College, a member of staff on the Eton Choral Courses for young singers and has initiated singing lessons and song performance evenings at UBS Investment Bank.

Organist posts have included Rochester Cathedral, Chelmsford Cathedral and St John's, Hyde Park. Work with other choirs includes St Paul's Cathedral Choir, London Symphony Chorus, and Eltham College Boys Choir.

Charles held a Douglas & Kyra Downie Award at the Royal College of Music studying piano and organ.

Thomas moved to London from New Zealand in 2003 to begin postgraduate studies in organ and musicology at the Royal Academy of Music where his research interests included the organ music of Dieterich Buxtehude and the choral music of J.S. Bach. Whilst at the Academy he won prizes for organ playing and improvisation and performed in several high profile concerts, accompanying ’cellist Stephen Isserlis at the Wigmore Hall and giving a concerto performance in Neresheim Abbey with the Royal Academy Baroque Orchestra.

Prior to moving to the United Kingdom Thomas was Organist and Director of Music at Wellington Metropolitan Cathedral. His work with the Cathedral Choir gained national attention through a busy schedule of services, recordings, broadcasts, tours and concerts, most notably during the Cathedral’s Centennial Festival, during which he conducted performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the Wellington Sinfonia, as well as Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with organist David Titterington. Under Thomas’ direction the choir toured Italy, singing at services and concerts in Rome, featuring as guest choir at the Epiphany Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. His final engagement with the Cathedral Choir was New Zealand’s first period-instrument performance of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, presented as a liturgical reconstruction.

Christopher read music at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he was also Senior Organ Scholar with responsibility for the choir and the music in the college chapel. Christopher toured with the college choir throughout England and Europe, as well as producing several recordings on the Guild label. During his time at Oxford, Christopher maintained an active interest in singing, especially with an early music group, Magdala, directed by David Skinner, and on recordings of the music of Orlando Gibbons, and for the soundtrack for the BBC's Blue Planet series, with Magdalen College Choir, Oxford.

Since his graduation from Oxford, Christopher has held organ scholarships at Portsmouth Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral. During this time he has performed on Songs of Praise, Radio 3 & 4, and, in 2005, for the live television broadcast on the occasion of the Requiem Mass for Pope John Paul II from Westminster Cathedral. As a soloist, Christopher has given recitals at Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Magdalen College, Oxford, and many other venues.

Christopher is Director of Ealing Abbey Choir and teaches music at St Benedict's School, Ealing. Under his guidance, the Abbey Choir has performed at the Royal Albert Hall (September 2007), and regularly gives concerts, including recent performances of Rutter's Gloria, Handel's Messiah and Lassus's Missa Bell' amfitrit' altera .

During 2009/10 he conducts three performances of Massenet Don Quichotte at La Monnaie, starring José van Dam and Jennifer Larmore, the British Première of Offenbach Die Rheinnixen (Les Fées du Rhin) with New Sussex Opera in Sussex and at London's Cadogan Hall, three concerts with the Orchestra of Opéra de Toulon, Donizetti L'elisir d'amore for Blackheath Halls Opera Project and Britten The Turn of the Screw at Dartington Festival. He is assistant conductor and chorus master to Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre for Rameau Platée (Opéra National de Paris), and to Jean-Christophe Spinosi for Bellini Norma (Paris Châtelet). He is also guest chorus master to the Philharmonia Chorus for Orff Carmina Burana at the Royal Albert Hall.

During 2010/11 he will conduct Tavener Ikon of Light with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir in Tallinn and Glasgow, and Vaughan Williams Hugh the Drover for New Sussex Opera. He will be assistant conductor for Gounod Roméo et Juliette (De Nederlandse Opera), Meyerbeer Les Huguenots (La Monnaie); also chorus master and assistant conductor for Massenet Cendrillon (Opéra Comique, Paris).

He has conducted Offenbach L'Ile de Tulipatan and Weill Der Jasager / Der Neinsager (Opéra de Lyon), Dove Tobias and the Angel, Mozart Idomeneo and Vaughan Williams The Poisoned Kiss (New Sussex Opera), Katori The Lily of the Valley (ROH Linbury), Mozart Così fan tutte (Oxford Playhouse, Opéra-Théâtre de Besançon), Verdi Nabucco (Eltham Choral Society at Blackheath Halls), elsewhere Dido and Aeneas, Ruddigore, The Boy Friend, The Seven Deadly Sins, as well as many orchestral and choral concerts.

Nicholas has worked extensively as assistant conductor to Marc Minkowski, at Opéra National de Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet - Paris, Théâtre de la Monnaie - Brussels, Opéra de Lyon, and the Festivals of Aix-en-Provence, Bremen, Salzburg and Santiago (Bizet Carmen, Haydn The Creation, Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Idomeneo, Offenbach Die Rheinnixen (Les Fées du Rhin), Purcell Dido and Aeneas, Rameau Platée, Rossini La Cenerentola, Wagner Die Feen, and Handel/Haydn/Purcell Homage to Saint Cecilia), alongside artists including Jennifer Larmore, Jessye Norman and Anne Sofie von Otter. Other conductors he has assisted include David Parry (Opera Rara recordings: Offenbach Vert-Vert and Entre Nous), and Jean-Christophe Spinosi (Opéra National de Paris – Handel Alcina).

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