Past Musical Directors
Hilary Campbell (2010 - 2011)
Hilary is a freelance musician based in London, and is the Musical Director of Harpenden Music Makers and the National Magazines’ Choir, and will shortly take up the post of Musical Director of the Music Makers of London. In 2009 she was selected to conduct the BBC Singers in a masterclass; she has also conducted Cardinall’s Musick in a workshop.
She is the founder, director and 1st soprano of vocal ensemble the Blossom Street Singers which has performed on TV and radio. Last autumn she acted as guest conductor for the Amici Chamber Choir. She has conducted in the UK, Spain, France and Germany, as well as on BBC2, Channel 4 and BBC Radios 2 and 4.
As a singer, Hilary performs as a soloist and with a number of ensembles, and last year undertook the mentor scheme with The Sixteen; she was also a choral scholar at St Martin in the Fields, and sings at a number of London churches.
Additionally, Hilary became Composer in Residence for the Ebor Singers in 2008, having won their inaugural competition. She was the winner of the Shipley Arts Festival Composer Award 2009, the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Choral Composition Prize 2009, the Philip Bates Prize for Young Composers in 2004, and in 2006 was a finalist in the National Youth Choir Composition Competition. Most recently, she was awarded second place in the Musica Sacra International Competition for Composers 2010. She was recently commissioned by Choir and OrganMagazine, and one of her works featured in the February edition of Organists’ Review Magazine. Some of her music is published by Shorter House.
Currently Hilary is undertaking postgraduate studies in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. She gained a distinction for her MA in Vocal Studies at the University of York in 2005, and completed an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in performance at Trinity College of Music last year; she will complete her studies at the Academy, where she studies with Patrick Russill and Paul Brough, next year. Hilary is the recipient of the Stanley Vann Scholarship 2010, and is supported by a number of trusts, including the Hobson Charity, the Seary Charitable Trust, the Royal College of Organists and the John Wates Trust.
Peter Leech (2008 - 2009)
Conductor, scholar, lecturer and composer, Peter Leech was also Musical Director of Aylesbury Choral Society and Collegium Singers. In 2008 he was awarded an Honorary Research fellowship in the Department of History, Swansea University.
From 1997-1999 he was conductor of the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church, Oxford and from 1998-2005 of the City of Oxford Choir. In 2003 he won First Prize at the Mariele Ventre Competition for Choral Conductors (Bologna) and later appeared at the Ravenna Festival. He has appeared as guest conductor with a variety of ensembles including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus, Coro Euridice (Bologna), Orlando Consort, City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, The Song Company (Sydney) and Tudor Choristers (Melbourne) and at numerous European and Australasian music festivals.
A specialist in the cultural life of the seventeenth century Catholic community in the British Isles, he completed his doctoral thesis ‘Music and Musicians in the Stuart Catholic Courts 1660-1718’ in 2004.