Hogarth Singers Appoint Peter Stobart As Musical Director
Their Spring Concert will take place on March 14 at St Michael & All Angels
Chiswick-based choir The Hogarth Singers has appointed Peter Stobart as their Musical Director at start of the Spring term 2015, succeeding Thomas Lydon.
Originating from Bradford, Peter Stobart is a conductor, organist and singer. He began his career as Organ Scholar both of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and, for three years, of the College of St. Hild and St. Bede, University of Durham. It was in Durham that he read a degree in music and also directed the Durham University Chamber Choir. After graduating, he sang as a Lay Clerk in Peterborough Cathedral choir and conducted the chamber choir, St. Peter’s Singers, and the Peterborough Children’s Choir.
In 2007, he moved to London to study choral conducting for two years at the Royal Academy of Music, with Patrick Russill and Paul Brough. He won the Alan Kirby Prize for Choir Training 2007/8 and the Thomas Armstrong Prize for Choral Conducting 2008/9 and took part in masterclasses with David Hill and the BBC Singers.
He is currently Head of Extra-Curricular Music at St Dunstan’s College, Catford, as well as Director of Music and Organist at Christ Church, East Sheen. He also directs the Southampton University Chamber Choir, the A Cappella Singers of Weybridge and the vocal chamber group, Novem Altare.
As a choral specialist, Peter has led workshops and choral days with singers of all ages. He has run ‘Come and Sing’ events on Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem and has curated a series of Bach’s Cantatas and Passions and Handel’s Chandos Anthems. He has a particular enthusiasm for Baroque music and uses period instrument ensembles regularly. Notable engagements have been Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), Blow’s Venus and Adonis (Peterborough Cathedral), Vivaldi’s Gloria and Faure’s Requiem (St John’s, Smith Square). He has recently been a guest conductor of the International Rameau Ensemble (St George’s, Hanover Square).
As a tenor, Peter has recently sung solo roles in performances of Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St John Passion and Magnificat, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mozart’s Requiem, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers and Orff’s Carmina Burana.
In 2014, he became the Artistic Director for the Voices of Hangzhou Youth Choir, based in a large city near Shanghai. In July and August 2014, he ran a summer school there for fifty children aged 8 to 16 and performed on Chinese National Day. He is due to return in 2015 to expand the work of the choir.
The Hogarth Singers’ Spring Concert will be held on Saturday 14 March at 7.30pm at St Michael's and All Angels, Bath Road, Chiswick W4. The programme will include William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices and Franz Schubert’s Mass in G.
For more details about the Choir, their next concert, or to sing with them (they are currently recruiting tenors and bases).
March 13, 2015