TAUNTON CAMERATA
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Musical Director / Members / Past Musical Directors
Peter Leech |
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We are delighted that Peter Leech has agreed to take on the role of Musical Director of Taunton Camerata from January 2008. He has outlined some very exciting programme plans for Taunton Camerata in the South West. He will bring a potent mix of energy and informed scholarship to our music making having established a reputation in the UK and internationally as a talented interpreter of a variety of choral and orchestral repertoire, ranging from Renaissance polyphony to contemporary music. Peter currently directs the Aylesbury Choral Society (from 2004) and Bristol Bach Choir (from 1999), having also worked with Yeovil Chamber Choir, City of Oxford Choir, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus, Esterhazy Chamber Choir and Orchestra, Chandos Chamber Choir, Frideswide Ensemble, Wells Tallis Choristers and the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church, Oxford. In 2003 he won First Prize at the Mariele Ventre International Competition for Choral Conductors, held in Bologna, Italy. The prize included the Silver Cup of the Italian Republic for an outstanding cultural achievement. This success led to a guest appearance in Italy directing the Coro di Euridice of Bologna at the 2005 Ravenna Festival Peter is a graduate of the Universities of Adelaide, Melbourne and the Victorian College of the Arts, winning in 1994 the Henry Krips Scholarship with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. He has a reputation in the UK for distinguished scholarship as well as performance, with articles published in Early Music and The Revised New Grove Dictionary. He won a PhD in musicology from Anglia Polytechnic University in 2004 for his ground-breaking thesis 'Music and Musicians in the Stuart Catholic Courts 1660-1718'. 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. He is very careful to see how programmes fit into the context of their own musical background, so we shall not only gain rich musical performances but also learn more about all the influences which directed the minds of the composers, whether in the medieval or in the 21st century. We look forward to more very exciting and varied concerts under his direction. He was recently appointed Chairman of the South West Early Music Forum which will put a new dynamic into performance of early music in our area.
Members
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Past Music Directors
Paul Ellis
Paul worked with Taunton Camerata from January 1997 to December 2007. During that time, Camerata performed some 60 concerts with an enormous variety of programming from C11th chant and organum or Perotin, to C21st works by Bob Chilcott, with something from almost every period inbetween, 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 Direcor of Music at Sherborne Abbey.