Choirs

Let’s get singing!

We are delighted that Jacqueline Barron and Simon Grant are jointly going to run the class and adjudicate.

This year’s choral competition (class 200) is open to amateur choirs of any age group and voice type, with a minimum of six people singing. The 2021 competition will be online, with entrants submitting a video of their performance rather than performing live. Every choir will receive a written adjudication sheet and a certificate of participation. All entrants will be invited to a Zoom meeting on Saturday 1st May to hear a general adjudication and selected performances.

Sing two contrasting pieces lasting no longer than 8 minutes in total. All choirs from the UK or Ireland are welcome.

First Prize £200 plus a special arrangement of a popular piece/song dedicated to and exclusively written for the winning choir by our esteemed adjudicator, Simon Grant.

The closing date for the Choir Competition is Friday 16th April.

Entry Fee £50 per choir.

We have a new system for entries. Please click on the “How to Apply” link below for how to apply and for hints on creating an effective video performance. The first time that you use the new entry system, you will need to register. Entrants must also upload copies of the music.

If an entrant has been a pupil of the Adjudicator in the six-months prior to the Festival, they should contact the Section Head before entering.

Adjudicators

Jacqueline Barron

Jacqueline Barron is a graduate of the Royal College of Music and began her professional career with international vocal group, The Swingle Singers. She performed the role of Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre and in Ken Hill’s (original) Phantom of the Opera at the Shaftesbury Theatre. She created the role of the Princess in the world premiere of the musical Moses and played Mrs Joe in Great Expectations (Shaw Theatre). She has made many solo broadcasts for BBC Radio 2, including Friday Night is Music Night. She recorded two songs for the best selling album The Andrew Lloyd Webber Songbook with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Her track Pie Jesu has been chosen on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Her busy concert schedule ranges from performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion (in Spain with the Scholars Baroque Ensemble) to the BBC Proms with the John Wilson Orchestra. Recent highlights include Game of Thrones concerts at Wembley SSE Arena, performances of Stockhausen’s Stimmung (with contemporary music group ‘Sing Circle’), ‘Keep the home fires burning’ (popular songs from the first and second world wars) with the Opus One Big Band and Maria in ‘Let’s sing The Sound of Music’ at Snape Maltings). She was invited back to Snape to sing Mary in ‘Let’s sing Mary Poppins’. Over the years Jacqueline has worked with artists such as Michael Ball, Michael Crawford, Marc Almond, Gary Barlow and Bonnie Tyler and has supported both Lesley Garrett and Russell Watson on their UK tours. She regularly performs with her husband and daughter (both professional singers) in their own show: A Family Affair – Folksong to Broadway.

Jacqueline is much in demand in the recording studio, recording incidental music for TV, adverts (notably M&S Christmas campaigns and the More 4 Christmas trailer 2013) as well as more than two hundred Hollywood films (including Harry Potter, Shrek Forever After, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Hunger Games, Cinderella, Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Mary Poppins Returns). She recorded Troy in Los Angeles and sang on Nine (directed by Rob Marshall). She has recorded backing vocals for many artists, including Bjork (Hidden Place), Tony Bennett, Mika, Sarah Brightman, Kylie (Christmas) and Robbie Williams (Swings both Ways). She has recorded songs for James Horner, Eric Levi, Ennio Morricone and Debbie Wiseman. Her many TV credits include Poirot (LWT), Taggart (Scottish Television), Innocents (Channel 4), Pepys, and Midsomer Murders (ITV). Her voice is featured in the films Fade to Black and Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic (BBC), and the TV series Father Brown and Cilla (ITV). Other projects include Disney’s Beauty and the Beast film at Shepperton Studios, Aladdin and Galavant (ABC Network, USA), all for composer Alan Menken. She sang the ‘Kulning’ solos in the world concert premiere of Disney’s Frozen at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015 and subsequently reprised her role with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Birmingham Symphony Hall). Jacqueline sang at Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter’s wedding, singing the soprano solo in Stanford’s The Bluebird as they walked down the aisle. She sang in the Queen’s 90^th birthday concert (Windsor Great Park) and was invited to Windsor Castle for afternoon tea where she was presented to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. In June 2019 she was featured in the televised BBC D Day 75 event, Portsmouth, (Andrew Sisters tribute), performing in the presence of royalty, world leaders and war veterans.

Jacqueline teaches at Mountview Academy of Performing Arts, London and at Ithaca College, New York (London Centre) where she also runs a lecture series entitled ‘Music in London’. Many of her pupils star in West End shows and on Broadway. She is a consultant and mentor for the Royal College of Music’s Creative Careers Centre, has worked as a vocal coach for the RSC and is an experienced adjudicator.

Website: www.jacquelinebarron.com

Simon Grant

Simon Grant studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and began his career as a member of the BBC Singers. He sang with the Swingle Singers for several years, acting as their musical director upon Ward Swingle’s retirement. This vocal octet was able to dispense with its rhythm section when it was discovered that Simon could provide a simultaneous rhythm and bass line vocally. He appeared in a TV commercial for Honda, and for T-mobile, enabling him to show off his extensive extended vocal techniques! His vocal ‘special effects’ were used in Hollywood for the 2007 Academy Awards, when he helped recreate vocally the soundtracks to famous scenes from movies such as Jaws (the shark approaching!), Brief Encounter (a departing train) and Psycho (murder in the shower). He can whistle and hum at the same time, an unusual talent he has demonstrated on numerous television and radio programmes worldwide, including Radio 4’s ‘Pick of the Week’. As Simon’s daughter, Eleanor, shares this talent they were both recently invited to be guests on ‘The Whistling Woman’ (BBC Radio 4). Simon’s whistling can be heard on several film soundtracks including ‘Shiner’, ‘Two Brothers’, ‘Shrek’, ‘Wallace and Gromit – Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ and ‘Surf’s Up’. Simon has arranged and written for numerous singers and vocal groups and was the musical director and arranger for a special Christmas episode of ‘The Bill’ (ITV).

Simon’s rich bass-baritone voice is much in demand, particularly in the field of Mediaeval and Baroque music. He has worked with the Gabrieli and New London Consorts and sang for many years as a member of The Scholars (quartet) and the Consort of Musicke, performing throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. His many solo recordings include Monteverdi’s Vespers (with the New London Consort), Bach Magnificat (Andrew Parrott) and Charpentier’s Te Deum and missa ‘assumpta est maria’ (Ivor Bolton / St James’s Baroque Players). He has recorded John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Matthew Locke’s Psyche (Envy and Bacchus) and Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Caronte) and recorded The Play of Daniel (Balthasar) with the Dufay Collective. He played Caronte in a production of Peri’s Orfeo at the Drottningholms Slottsteater in Stockholm and has performed Blow’s Venus and Adonis at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Concerts include Bach’s B minor mass in Italy and Germany, St John Passion (Jesus) in Israel, St Matthew Passion in Spain, Handel’s Acis & Galatea (Polypheme) in Budapest and Mozart’s Requiem in London with the London Mozart Players. He sang the role of Caronte to great critical acclaim in a staged production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. He has since sung the role in Beijing, USA, Warsaw, Rotterdam and Jerusalem as well as major festivals throughout the UK. Simon appeared in the New London Consort’s staged version of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in London and Budapest. He toured Europe in Purcell’s King Arthur as well as performing The Tempest in Paris and Prague.

Simon Grant’s involvement in contemporary music has lead to appearances with the Matrix Ensemble, Electric Phoenix (founder member), Ensemble Modern, Tenebrae, Singcircle and Synergy Vocals. He has performed the music of Luciano Berio at venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Centre, New York, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (Los Angeles) and La Scala, Milan. He has sung the part of the Father in Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins many times, most recently in 2016 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Glasgow City Halls). He was the soloist in the world premiere of Where two worlds touch (by Helen Chadwick & Howard Moody) at the Salisbury Festival UK.

Choirs

Let’s get singing!

The closing date for the Choir Competition is Friday 16th April.

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