Ralph Woodward

Last updated

Ralph Woodward (born 17 November 1971) is an English classical conductor, arranger and organist. His main focus is on conducting choirs.

Contents

Early life and education

Ralph Woodward was born in Stockton-on-Tees, England.

He attended Durham Chorister School from 1979 to 1985, and then went to Durham School, where he was a King's Scholar and a Music Scholar. He spent 1990–91 as Organ Scholar at Durham Cathedral, before taking up an Organ Scholarship at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied for a BA and a BMus, specialising in the music of Benjamin Britten. [1] While there he unearthed and published an early Evening Service by Charles Villiers Stanford, and commissioned the cantata Midwinter by Will Todd.

Career

Since 1995, Woodward has been a freelance musician. While his work has taken him all over the world, the bulk of it has been in and around Cambridge. Since 1997, he has been Musical Director of the Fairhaven Singers, and has overseen their development into a leading chamber choir. From 2002 to 2010, he was Musical Director of the Britten–Pears Chamber Choir. Until 2016 he was the Musical Director of NORVIS, an early music summer school in Durham, and of Full Score, a semi-professional chamber choir. He has worked with a number of top orchestras, including the London Mozart Players, The Parley of Instruments, Britten Sinfonia and City of London Sinfonia. He is also active as an editor for Oxford University Press, with particular involvement in the William Walton Edition. He has made many arrangements for choirs: his version of the theme for Upstairs, Downstairs was featured on BBC Radio 4's PM programme, [2] and he has arranged and conducted the choral music for two albums by Cradle of Filth. [3] He has conducted the premieres of works by many leading composers, including Jonathan Dove, Bob Chilcott, Will Todd, Eriks Esenvalds, Cecilia McDowall and Ola Gjeilo. In January 2022, he became Interim Assistant Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge, conducting King's Voices.

Discography

Related Research Articles

David Willcocks British choral conductor (1919–2015)

Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.

Choir of Kings College, Cambridge Choir

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English choir. It is considered one of today's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's College, Cambridge, in 1441, to provide daily singing in his Chapel, which remains the main task of the choir to this day.

Jonathan Dove is an English composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera, including in 1990 an 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen for CBTO. He was Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001 to 2006.

Richard Hickox English conductor

Richard Sidney Hickox was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.

Ralph Allwood British conductor

Ralph Allwood, is a British choral conductor, composer and teacher, who currently holds the appointment of Fellow Commoner advising in Music at Queens' College, Cambridge. He was previously the Precentor and Director of Music at Eton College between 1985 and 2011. He had previously headed the music departments at Pangbourne and Uppingham.

David Hill (choral director)

David Hill, is a choral conductor and organist. Beginning July 2013, he holds an appointment to the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His highest-profile roles are as Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers from September 2007 until 2017, and Musical Director of The Bach Choir since April 1998.

Benjamin Bayl is a Dutch and Australian conductor who works with symphony and chamber orchestras, opera houses and period instrument orchestras in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Sir Philip Stevens Ledger, CBE, FRSE was an English classical musician, choirmaster and academic, best remembered as Director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge in 1974–1982 and of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1982 until he retired in 2001. He also composed choral music and played the organ, piano and harpsichord.

Andrew Nethsingha English choral conductor and organist

Andrew Nethsingha, FRCO, ARCM is an English choral conductor and organist, the son of the late Lucian Nethsingha also a cathedral organist. He is the Director of Music at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was previously the Organ Scholar. He was also the President of the Cathedral Organists' Association. He has performed in the UK, North America, South Africa, the Far East and many European countries.

Stephen David Layton is an English conductor.

Will Todd is an English musician and composer. He is a pianist, who performs regularly with others in his own works.

David John Chandler Price is a British choral conductor and organist.

Marcus Wibberley Musical artist

Marcus Wibberley is a British organist, conductor and choir trainer.

Meurig Bowen is a British arts administrator who works mainly in festival and orchestral programming. He is the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Britten Sinfonia.

James Sherlock is a musician of British and Irish ancestry.

The Fairhaven Singers is a chamber choir based in Cambridge, UK, directed by Ralph Woodward. The choir is a mixed ensemble of about 48 amateur singers singing choral repertoire from the 15th century to the present. Among the major works it has performed are Bach's St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, Mozart's Requiem, Brahms' Requiem, and James MacMillan's Seven Last Words from the Cross. It has commissioned and premiered new works from composers that have included Jonathan Dove, Will Todd, Bob Chilcott, Carl Rütti and Cecilia MacDowall.

Ben Parry (musician)

Ben Parry is a British musician, composer, conductor, singer, arranger and producer in both classical and light music fields. He is the Director of London Voices and Artistic Director of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.

Alan Bullard is a British composer, known mainly for his choral and educational music. His compositions are regularly performed and broadcast worldwide, and they appear on a number of CDs.

Charles Christopher Steel was a British composer of classical music.

A Boy Was Born, Op. 3, is a choral composition by Benjamin Britten. Subtitled Choral variations for men's, women's and boys' voices, unaccompanied , it was originally composed from 1932 to 1933. It was first performed on 23 February 1934 as a BBC broadcast. Britten revised the work in 1955. The composer set different texts related to Christmas to music as theme and variations, scored for an a cappella choir with boys' voices.

References

  1. "US". Independent.co.uk.[ dead link ]
  2. "BBC - Radio 4 - PM - Up Shares, Down Shares theme tune". Bbc.co.uk.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-08-07. Retrieved 2011-08-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)