TAUNTON CAMERATA
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Musical Director / Members / Past Musical Directors
Peter Leech |
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Peter is conductor of Taunton Camerata, Bristol Bach Choir and Aylesbury Choral Society. He enjoys a busy career in the UK and abroad as a guest conductor, lecturer, broadcaster, musicologist and workshop-leader, in addition to freelance work as a singer, continuo player and percussionist. Peter is also Chairman of the South West Early Music Forum and this year will take up an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Department of History, University of Wales, Swansea. In 2003 Peter won first prize at the Fondazione Mariele Ventre International Competition for Choral Conductors (Bologna), including the Silver Cup of the Italian Republic for an outstanding cultural achievement. He returned to Italy to direct Coro Euridice di Bologna at the 2005 Ravenna Festival and continues to be involved with the FMV in Bologna. In July 2008 he will appear at the York Early Music Festival and in the same month his specialist ensemble Cappella Fede will make their debut performance in Liverpool. In the UK Peter has conducted the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church, Oxford, the City of Oxford Choir, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus, Esterhazy Chamber Choir and Orchestra, Chandos Chamber Choir, Frideswide Ensemble, Wells Tallis Choristers, Canzona, The Delightful Companions, Yeovil Chamber Choir, Bristol Philharmonic Orchestra, Stowe Opera Orchestra and Chameleon Arts Orchestra. He is in great demand as a guest workshop leader, with guest directorships have included Harpenden Choral Society, Cheltenham Choral Society, Nailsea Choral Society and Wyncantores. A graduate of the Elder Conservatorium and Victorian College of the Arts (Australia), Peter arrived in the UK in 1996 to undertake doctoral studies at Anglia University (Cambridge) where he completed his thesis, 'Music and Musicians of the Stuart Catholic Courts, 1660-1718' in 2004. During this time Peter lectured at Colchester Institute, performed regularly at the Suffolk Villages Festival and sang with the Cambridge Taverner Choir, choir of St. George's Hanover Square, St. Margaret's Westminster, St. Mary le Bow and other London churches. Peter's scholarly activities include contributions to the Revised New Grove (2000), reviews for Early Music (OUP) and specialisation in English seventeenth-century Catholic music, art and literature. His critical edition of recently discovered keyboard music by the Jesuit composer Antoine Selosse (1621-87) will be published by Edition HH in 2008. His discography includes music by various Bachs, Spanish Renaissance masters and Russian Orthodox music, as well as world premiere recordings of works by numerous British composers, the American composer Edward Collins ('Hymn to the Earth', RSNO/Alsop, 2003) and the Australian composer Martin Wesley-Smith, whose vocal drama 'Quito', directed by Peter with The Song Company (Sydney, 1996), received numerous Classical Music awards. Other performances premieres have included works by Samuel Wesley, Innocenzo Fede, Thomas Linley Junior, Ian Higginson, Richard Pantcheff, Scott McIntyre, Jonathan Lloyd, Tarik O'Regan and Michael Stimpson, amongst many others.
Members
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Past Music Directors
Paul Ellis
Paul worked with Taunton Camerata for ten years, from January 1998 to December 2007. During that time, Camerata performed some 60 concerts with an enormous variety of programming from C11th chant and organum of Perotin, to C21st works by Bob Chilcott, with something from almost every period in between, including Renaissance, Baroque, Early Classical, Romantic and C20th repertoire. Paul is a tremendously talented keyboard player, and rehearsals were always brilliantly accompanied and driven along under Paul's direction.
He studied at Manchester University and the Royal Northern College of Music where his tutors included Gillian Weir (organ) and Robert Elliott (harpsichord). He also participated in various masterclasses with a number of eminent musicians, including Lionel Rogg, Igor Kipnis and Milan Slechta (Prague International Summer School). As an organist, he has given numerous recitals in this country and abroad at venues including Southwell Minster, Blackburn Cathedral, Colston Hall, Bristol, St George's, Hanover Square, London, Manchester Town Hall and Notre Dame, Paris and Narbonne Cathedral. It was at university that Paul began to explore his love of choral music.
During Paul's 10 years with Camerata, the choir performed several UK premieres of newly transcribed baroque choral works, by Zelenka, Biber and Sances. Other rare performances include Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Copland In the Beginning, Bach Magnificat, Biber Requiem in F min and the Monteverdi Vespers of 1640.
Paul is also Musical Director of Sherborne Chamber Choir and the East Cornwall Bach Choir. Sherborne Chamber Choir and Taunton Camerata occasionally joined forces under Paul’s direction to undertake programmes suited to greater numbers of singers, including performances of Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast in Wells Cathedral. Paul was for several years Director of Music at Sherborne School for Boys and is now Director of Music at Sherborne Abbey.
Adrian Carpenter
Adrian spent just over a year with Camerata from September 1996 to D ecember 1997, introducing us to an exciting repertoire of both Renaissance and 20th Century Organ Masses ( Langlais, for example).
Hugh Potton
Hugh was with Camerata for a relatively short time, from January 1995 to July 1996 before he moved away to SE England It was under this direction that Camerata entered the HTV Sing Out competition and came second to Bristol Bach Choir. Hugh has returned on numerous occasions as organist for a number of concerts.