GRAHAM CALDBECK
Conductor

GRAHAM CALDBECK studied music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a Choral Exhibitioner and conducted the TCMS Chorus. He held the positions of Director of Music at Alleyn’s School in London and Head of the Hampshire Specialist Music Course in Winchester before being appointed to the Royal College of Music in 1989, where he worked firstly as Head of Undergraduate Studies and subsequently as Head of Individual Studies until 2004. For five years, he was an External Examiner for Kent University at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

A former Assistant Organist of St Martin-in-the-Fields, he holds both the Fellowship and Choir Training diplomas of the Royal College of Organists and has worked as a soloist, accompanist and continuo player. He has conducted the RCM Chorus and Chamber Choir, acted as Chorus Master for Sir David Willcocks, Richard Hickox and David Hill for concerts and recordings, and been guest conductor with a number of choirs including the Farrant Singers, the Jersey Festival Choir and the Somerset County Youth Choir. He has wide experience as a choral singer and for eleven years sang regularly in services, concerts and recordings with the Choir of Winchester Cathedral under both Martin Neary and David Hill.

In 1984, he founded the Winchester-based choir, Southern Voices, which he conducted for fifteen years, establishing them as one of the leading chamber choirs in Hampshire. He has been conductor of the Somerset Chamber Choir since 1990, working with many of the UK’s finest vocal soloists such as Emma Kirkby, Gillian Fisher, Sarah Fox, Janis Kelly, Jeni Bern, Sophie Bevan, James Bowman, Susan Bickley, Louise Mott, Adrian Thompson, Rufus Müller, Ian Bostridge, James Oxley, Michael George and Christopher Maltman, with ensembles such as Canzona, the Sarum Chamber Orchestra, His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, the London Bach Orchestra and the London Festival Orchestra.

Since 1996 he has been conductor of the London-based Nonsuch Singers and with them has performed a wide repertoire embracing important sacred and secular a capella works from the fifteenth century onwards, major Baroque works by Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Lalande and Royer with period instrument orchestras including La Serenissima, Canzona, The Band of Instruments and His Majesty’s Sagbutts & Cornetts. He is a passionate champion of contemporary choral music and, during the past five years has conducted works by Sir John Tavener, Judith Weir, Roxanna Panufnik, Diana Burrell and Gabriel Jackson in the presence of the composers, including several world premières. Since 2004 he has also been musical director of the Mayfield Festival Chorus in E. Sussex and Director of Music at St Mary The Boltons, SW10.

Recent concerts include music by Schütz, Victoria and Jonathan Dove in Southwark Cathedral (March 2007), Rachmaninov’s Vespers in St. John’s, Smith Square (November 2007), a programme of Monteverdi, Brahms and Gabriel Jackson in the Spitalfields Festival (December 2007), the world première of Roxanna Panufnik’s Wild Ways in St John’s, Smith Square (March 2008).

Outside Somerset, future projects in 2008 include Monteverdi’s Vespers in the 2008 Mayfield Festival, a concert of 16, 17 & 20^th century English music with Emma Kirkby, the lutenist, Jakob Lindberg, and Nonsuch Singers as part of the Best of British festival at St Martin-in-the-Fields in June, a weekend’s services at Ripon Cathedral in July, a programme of American and English music, also at St Martin’s, in October and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Canzona in Southwark Cathedral in December.

Graham writes:

"Since I first conducted the Somerset Chamber Choir in a large scale concert in 1990, the Choir has continued to extend its expertise in an ever widening repertoire. From music of medieval times through that of the Golden Age (Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons & Weelkes), Baroque (Bach, Handel, Purcell, Scarlatti, Lalande & Charpentier), Classical (Haydn & Mozart), Romantic (Beethoven, Rossini, Bruckner & Elgar) and twentieth century (including Duruflé, Poulenc, Britten, Walton, Bernstein, Tavener, Gorecki, Pärt, Dove, MacMillan & Rutter), the Choir has provided its audience with impressive programmes of the finest choral music sung to the highest standard. Variety of repertoire has required a variety of instrumental forces. Besides a cappella music, the Choir has been accompanied by piano, organ, harp, baroque and modern orchestras, brass and percussion, and even handbells and a saxophone quartet! Well-known instrumentalists the Choir has worked with include Catherine Mackintosh, Theresa Caudle, Philip Picket, Jeremy West, David Miller, Richard Pearce, Christopher Stokes, Rupert Gough and Crispian Steele-Perkins. The Choir has sung with an array of soloists of the highest caliber, including numerous international recording celebrities, among them Emma Kirkby, Gillian Fisher, Janis Kelly, James Bowman, Michael Chance, Rufus Müller, Adrian Thomson, Andrew Kennedy, James Oxley, Christopher Maltman and Michael George. What is particularly encouraging is that the Choir has not only extended its musical confidence and range, but in doing so has also increased its audience over a larger area, giving concerts in Devon and Dorset as well as regular performances in Taunton, Wells and elsewhere in Somerset (Martock in 2006 and Weston-Super-Mare Festival 2007). The endorsement of the Choir's work by our Vice-Presidents: Sir David Willcocks Adrian Male and Benjamin Luxon, together with excellent press reviews, have been welcome votes of confidence."