Conducting (Choral)
Birmingham Conservatoire currently offers the best opportunities in the UK for the study of choral conducting. Our postgraduate courses are highly proactive and demand the same of you.
The Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir is conducted by Paul Spicer (principal conductor) and Jeffrey Skidmore, who undertakes an early music project each year. The Choir gives at least two concerts and makes a CD recording each year for various companies. Its most recent release, Invocation (Regent Records), of music by Kenneth Leighton and James MacMillan, has received considerable critical acclaim. James MacMillan attended the recording sessions. The Chamber Choir recorded Delius and Elgar for SOMM in July 2011.
Camerata was founded specifically for choral conducting students to run and to conduct. It has become a highly successful group in its own right, giving many concerts both in Birmingham and further afield. It will be the principal responsibility of you and your fellow choral conducting students to nurture this group, to manage and organise it, to choose the repertoire in consultation with Paul Spicer and the Conservatoire Library, to encourage singers to join, and to keep them interested and musically satisfied, thus keeping the group together and enjoying its work.
Many of our choral conducting students choose to set up their own groups. One successful example of this is alumnus Chi Hoe Mak’s ‘Icarus Ensemble’, a contemporary vocal group working with students from the Composition Department to give them the opportunity to learn more about writing for choirs and the experience of working with singers. This group recently gave a workshop and concert at the RNCM in Manchester.