I enjoy a varied musical life as a piano accompanist, répétiteur, choral director, chamber musician, and singer. These different pursuits have given me opportunities to perform in some wonderful venues and travel around Europe, South America and the Caribbean.
Piano Accompanist
I grew up in a musical household with older siblings who were already learning instruments. From a youngish age, we started playing music together and, when I was a teenager, we performed some concerts in our father's church. Between that and playing in chamber groups in school, I fell in love with collaborative music-making. This was also encouraged by one piano teacher in particular, Scott Mitchell, who did his school teaching alongside being a staff accompanist at the RSAMD (now, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).
I was lucky enough to be offered places at the Royal College of Music, first as an undergraduate pianist, studying under Andrew Ball, and then a postgraduate piano accompanist, learning from Simon Lepper and Roger Vignoles. Both as a student and since then, I have had opportunities to work with amazing singers like Edward Grint, Katy Thomson and Louise Alder; I have explored piano trio, quartet, and quintet music with the Billroth Quartet; and I have visited amazing parts of the world accompanying the singers in Cantaremus on board Swan Hellenic cruise ships.
I have had further inspiration from teaching on the Samling Artist course, a week-long intensive course where I, another accompanist, and seven singers immersed ourselves in song repertoire with guidance from the likes of Yvonne Kenny and Christopher Glynn. In 2016, I returned to the Royal College of Music as a Piano Accompanist Fellow and now work there as a staff accompanist.
Orchestral pianist
After completing my studies at the RCM, I enrolled on a course run by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Foyles Future Firsts. During that year-long experience I was able to observe and learn from the amazing pianist, Catherine Edwards. I was given the chance to perform with the orchestra both in London and on tour to Lucerne, Hamburg and Bucharest. I also gained experience playing the celeste and the harmonium. I have also had the joy of playing with the London Symphony Orchestra and the City of London Sinfonia, as well as playing in pit orchestras for productions by Opera Holland Park, Opera Della Luna and Co Opera Company.
Répétiteur
My work as a répétiteur is something that brings me a huge amount of enjoyment. It has been a privilege to be a part of the rehearsal process with companies such as English Touring Opera, Opera Della Luna and the National Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Company, seeing the drama take shape between the director, musical director and singers. A particular highlight of this was being the répétiteur, and then pianist in the pit orchestra, for Opera Della Luna’s production of Jake Heggie’s opera, Three Decembers, in 2022. It's a stunning piece and the three-singer cast of Llio Evans, Jean-Kristof Bouton and Lucy Shaufer, were wonderful colleagues and amazing performers.
Since 2017, I have been afforded the even greater privilege of being the Musical Director for Opera in Oborne. This festival makes for my favourite week of the year, bringing small-cast productions of operas to the village church of Oborne, in Dorset. We are lucky to have an amazing team of volunteers in the village who build the stage, rig up lighting, host us in their homes, feed us and generally look after us in the best possible way. During my time as MD, we have performed La Bohème, Così fan Tutte, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, La Traviata and Tosca, Trouble in Tahiti, and others.
Singer
I started singing regularly as a chorister in the choir of St Mary’s Cathedral, in Edinburgh. I was incredibly fortunate with the time that I was in the choir as those few years included tours to the US, Switzerland, Germany and Holland; a CD recording, and several radio broadcasts. I maintain that it was some of the best musical training I have ever had, and I have always seeked to stay involved in church music. Nowadays, I am a tenor in the choir of All Saints’ Margaret Street in London, as well as deputising for the choirs of St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and St George’s Windsor.
Silent Film Accompanist
A new venture, since 2023, as part of the Opera in Oborne festival has been improvising accompaniments for silent films. These include Buster Keaton’s feature film The General, and Safety Last starring Harold Lloyd. My next project will take me away from the world of Vaudeville slapstick into horror, improvising music for the first vampire film, Nosferatu.
Choral Director
In what feels a bit like poacher-turned-gamekeeper, I have spent an increasing amount of time over the past decade or more standing in front of choirs. I currently work with four community choirs, either as the director or assistant director and it brings a wonderful refreshment to work with people for whom making music is pure enjoyment, without any of the complications of career or competition.
There's also a wonderful variety of what sort of music these different choirs are interested in. My office choir at Dechert law firm, and Take Note community choir in Blackheath enjoy singing choral arrangements of pop, rock and folk songs, with the occasional toe-dipping into classical repertoire. The Salisbury Chamber Chorus for whom I am the assistant, working alongside their director, Simon McEnery, primarily build their programmes around opera choruses including plenty of Puccini and Verdi. Then, the Islington Choral Society, who I have recently joined as assistant Musical Director sing music that one might more traditionally associate with choral societies; Handel oratorios, Mozart masses and other larger scale choral works.