Musical Director - Aedan Kerney (from Sept 2009)

Aedan grew up in Worcester where his first school was permeated by the smell of the next-door Worcester Sauce Factory and his second school was in the shadow of Worcester Cathedral, home to the Three Choirs Festival. His sauce and love of choral music have sustained him ever since.

In his financially poor but culturally rich home his mother taught piano in the “front room” and his father’s professional photographic darkroom was in the small third bedroom upstairs. The radio was in the front room so if his mother was teaching he had to listen to programmes like “Journey into Space” with his Dad in the darkroom, the smell of weird chemicals in the air, scales and arpeggios coming up through the floor and just a dim red light in the corner - scary!

He attended King’s School Worcester where a couple of his younger contemporaries were Stephen Cleobury and Stephen Darlington, recently retired Directors of Music at King’s College Cambridge and Christ Church Cathedral Oxford. Aedan then attended Madeley College of Education and Keele University in Staffordshire where he gained a B.Ed degree in Music and Education.

Coming to West Sussex in 1968 he became one of those most rare things – a one-school music teacher; for 41 years Boundstone Community College became his professional home. If you stay long enough in one place you know that your failures and successes can be blamed on only one person! Thankfully most of the work was immensely rewarding and he became an MBE in 2004 for services to music education.

Aedan has been Musical Director of Worthing Choral Society since 2009. During that time he has loved performing many of the great choral masterpieces with this talented and committed Choir.