Hon ARAM AGSM
(President)
Alison Pearce has a distinguished international career as a
soprano soloist in oratorio, opera and recital. She appears with the
world's leading conductors and orchestras at major venues and festivals as well
as broadcasting for radio and television in many countries. She is also
professor in the vocal department of the Royal Academy of Music and the artistic
director of a European Summer School for Singers.
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Aedan Kerney
MBE BEd
We welcome Aedan as the new Musical Director of Worthing
Choral Society. Below is an account of Aedan’s career which we believe will be
of great interest to many.
King’s School Worcester: 1956 -63
There was surprisingly at that time no music at the school but my mother was an
excellent piano teacher and gave me my early music education. My father was the
official photographer at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester so I met Kodaly,
Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss, Edmund Rubbra and Julius Harrison; he also did
all the photography for Watkins Shaw for “Messiah” and did much micro-copying
for him with original medieval musical scores at Worcester Cathedral Library and
works by Purcell, etc at Tenbury Wells Library. Working beside him as a boy and
always hearing piano music in the house gave me a life-long love for music
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Student Teacher in Birmingham/ part-time student
at Birmingham School of Music: 1963-64
I decided that I wanted to further my music education and went to work for a
year as a student-teacher at Colmers Farm Primary School
in Rubery, Birmingham.
This also gave me the opportunity to have piano lessons at the Birmingham School
of Music and sing with the School
of Music Choir. This
included Verdi “Requiem” in
Birmingham
Town Hall and York Minster
and St Matthew Passion in Lichfield Cathedral. I also was accepted to sing in
Worcester Cathedral Festival Choir under Christopher Robinson and cycled from
Birmingham to Worcester once a week to rehearse, singing in
the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford Cathedral in September 1964 under
Christopher Robinson, Melville Cooke and Herbert Sumsion.
Madeley College
of Education and Keele
University: 1964-68
I gained my “with honours” B.Ed Degree in the first year that the degree was
awarded, with Music and Education as my principal studies. As well giving a
recital – lecture based on Brahms Variations on a theme by Handel in my final
year I studied ‘cello and ran a small university choir. Major choral
performances were given under George Pratt and the Lindsey Quartet were based in
Keele University Lindsey Hall and worked with the University Orchestra in which
I played ‘cello.
Boundstone
Community College: 1968-2009
At Boundstone I worked initially under Olive Poole, being made Head of Music in
1973. I was part of the team that successfully wrote the bid for specialist
performing arts status which was gained 2002, also raising £58,000 needed for
the successful bid. From 2002 I have been Assistant Headteacher, responsible for
the Performing and Visual Arts Faculty and now purely for the specialism in a
part-time capacity. I was made an MBE in 2004 for my work in developing music at
Boundstone and in its community and I was awarded the Lifetime Teaching Award
for the South East of England later that year. Since about 1970 I have been the
Organist and Choirmaster at St Michael and all Angels Church in South Lancing.
This link has been very helpful in developing a community aspect to the best of
the music-making.
During my time at Boundstone my aim has been to involve as many people as
possible in quality music and more than 50 past students are now music-teachers
themselves. I have established four choirs at Boundstone, two of which I still
run.
However,
much more important than any of this is the passion which I have for performing
the world’s greatest music with fellow musicians who share the “buzz” which it
gives to our lives. I do believe that there is no finer thing that any human
being can do than sing in a choir which is aspiring to perfection - but
perfection with a human face.
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Neil Turner
BSc (Hons) MIEE PGCE
(Associate Conductor)
Neil
has lived in Worthing for most of his life, although he was born in Cheshire. He showed an early interest in music
which
was encouraged by his mother, Joan, and has continued with a love of music ever
since.
He started piano lessons when he was 7 years of age, and took lessons on the
church organ from his mid teens, studying later with Colin Ross of Newcastle
Cathedral. He also studied singing with Nigel Wickens, a pupil of Pierre Bernac,
after gaining his BSc (Hons) degree in London. Neil sang as a boy in the Choir of St
Mary’s, Goring Parish Church in the early sixties, going on to play the piano
for the Sunday school for several years.
He has thus been involved in church music since childhood, and owes much of his
current knowledge and expertise to a happy and fruitful time with the RSCM under
Martin How, with whom he took part in several BBC radio and television
broadcasts.
He was Organist at St. Mary’s, Broadwater
Parish Church,
from 1977 to 1986, and has held his present post of Organist and Choirmaster at
St Botolph’s, Heene
Parish Church,
since 1986, with choir members aged 7 to 94. New recruits for all voice parts
are always welcome to apply to join the choir, and further details may be found
on the internet at
www.stbotolphsheene.org.uk .
Neil is a qualified teacher based in
Worthing, and currently works at
Worthing
College and as a private
tutor of Mathematics and Music.
Recent concerts include solo recitals in
Worthing, Shoreham and Chichester, with works
by composers ranging from Purcell to Finnissy.