Past members of the musical team
Laurel Neighbour – Assistant Conductor
Laurel is a choral conductor who leads the London Humanist Choir, Springer Nature Singers, King’s College London Staff Choir and Islington Council Singers. She has just completed an Apprenticeship with the Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus, through the Association of British Choral Directors.
She sings with many professional choirs in London including Apollo5, St Paul’s Cathedral Consort, Gareth Malone’s Voices and London Contemporary Orchestra, has completed The Sixteen’s training programme, Genesis Sixteen, and held choral scholarships with Voces8, and at St Martin-in-the-Fields. She studied Music at Nottingham and grew up in Kent, benefiting from Kent Youth Choirs training.
Now based in London, recent highlights include conducting City of Women in Leadenhall Market, a new piece setting the words of unsung London women; a Flashmob outside St Paul’s Cathedral singing Sisters are doing it for themselves to celebrate International Womens’ Day; recording parts for the Amazon Christmas advert Give a little bit with several of her choirs; and conducting choirs singing the French and Italian national anthems at Twickenham stadium for the Rugby World Cup. Last September Laurel made her conducting debut at the BBC Proms, conducting Victoria Park Singers, one of the eight choirs in John Luther Adams’ In the Name of the Earth, a massed work for 600 voices in the Albert Hall.
Laurel also enjoys getting young people singing, leading education projects for The Voices Foundation, VOCES8 Foundation and works for London Youth Choir as an Assistant Leader. See Laurel’s home page
Natalia Carrasco Vargas- Assistant Conductor
Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, Natalia has lived and studied in the United States, France and
is currently based in London, U.K., where she graduated in 2018 with a Masters in
Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music.
Since 2014 she has been conducting choral societies and conservatory choirs in France
and England. She also performs and teaches early music in Oaxaca, Mexico.
In 2019 Natalia returned to Mexico for personal reasons. We hope to welcome her back eventually.
Richard Harker- Assistant Conductor
Richard is musical director of The Hythe Singers, the Wallace Singers, Teatime Opera and APP Singers, He is assistant conductor of both the St John of Jerusalem Festival Chorus and Dulwich Chamber Choir, and is European musical director for RelaxSing Tours. This summer (2016) Richard was chorus master for La Bohème with Opera Holland Park. Richard runs youth choirs for Northbridge House School in Camden and is one of the artistic directors of the Voices of London Festival.
Richard graduated with an MA in Choral Conducting from the Royal Academy of Music, receiving the Thomas Armstrong Prize. He read music at, and was organ scholar of, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he received the Swinburne Prize. Current projects include an opera based on Schumann’s song cycles entitled Unknowing and Der Diktator with Teatime Opera, and Fire Ring at the Grimeborn Festival.
WeiHsi Hu – Assistant Conductor
WeiHsi was previously a choral conductor in Canada for 12 years, most recently as Artistic Director of Folsom Singers, a women’s choir in Vancouver.
His conducting career started as Assistant Conductor to Bruce Pallan at the Vancouver Bach Children’s Chorus and at the same time as Music Director of New Westminster United Church in 1999. Since then WeiHsi has worked extensively with children’s and youth voices, including ensembles such as the British Columbia Boys’ Choir.
WeiHsi studied conducting with Bruce Pullan and Leonard Ratzlaff at the University of British Columbia and University of Alberta. He also studied orchestral conducting with Kenneth Kiesler at the Medomak Conductors’ Retreat and with Colin Metters at the Royal Academy of Music Spring Conducting Masterclasses
WeiHsi took up work in Berlin from summer 2016. For more on his musical career see WeHsi’s home page
Philip Voldman – Repetiteur
Philip Voldman trained at the National Opera Studio, London supported by the Leonard Hancock Memorial Trust Bursary. Born in New York, Philip went to the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York (otherwise known as ‘The Fame School’). He moved to the UK following graduation in 2003 and gained a BMus (Hons) from the Royal College of Music in London. During this time he met the tenor Dennis O’Neill, who appointed him repetiteur at the Cardiff International Academy of Voice (now Wales International Academy of Voice). While at CIAV, he has played for such artists as Richard Bonynge, Kiri Te Kanawa, Nuccia Focile, Ileana Cotrubas, Della Jones and Rebecca Evans. Since then he has been in demand as an opera and recital accompanist.
In the last few years, he has assisted Pavilion Opera on the 2009 production of Tosca and with New Devon Opera, productions of La Bohème and La traviata. Philip has also been Music Director and Pianist for Scarlet Opera’s production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, the Musical Theatre Project with the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and with Scottish Opera’s Essential Scottish Opera Tour performing with Joanne Boag, Chloe de Backer, Joshua Ellicott and Samuel Evans.
In July 2010, Philip completed the Opera Repetiteur MMus course with distinction at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he was assistant conductor to Clive Timms on Massenet’s Chérubin and Britten’s Albert Herring. Following this he was appointed Repetiteur Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and worked with Chelsea Opera Group on Donizetti’s Belisario conducted by Richard Bonynge.
Recent events include Il Tabarro, Pelléas et Mélisande and Werther with the Grimeborn Festival directed by Aylin Bozok, Suor Angelica with Talent Unlimited Hansel and Gretel with English Pocket Opera Company directed by Mark Tinkler, Die Zauberflöte with The Complete Singer directed by Jenny Miller, Der Ring des Nibelungen at Longborough Festival Opera conducted by Anthony Negus and The Turn of the Screw with Opera Holland Park.
Philip was Music Director of Clapham Opera Festival. He left us in 2016 on taking up work with Scottish Opera. For more information and upcoming events, please visit: www.philipvoldman.co.uk
Jonathan Morris – Repetiteur
A native of Ireland, Jonathan Morris started piano lessons aged ten before being accepted into the Junior Department of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin at the age of sixteen. Whilst in Ireland, he was taught by the prestigious Irish pianist Hugh Tinney before moving to London in 2010 to study with Ronan O’Hora at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, receiving a full scholarship from the Guildhall School Trust.
He has been involved with many major music festivals worldwide, including Aspen in Colorado (attending for three consecutive years and receiving scholarship aid from many generous supporters including the Polonsky Foundation) and the Astona International Music Academy in Switzerland. He has also been tutored by some of the ?nest musicians of this generation including Peter Donohoe, Cristina Oritz, and John O’Conor.
Jonathan has frequently been successful in competitions: in 2014 he came second in the Nordell Cup at the Feis Ceoil, Ireland’s leading national music festival. In 2013 he won both the Hamilton Harty Cup and the Anthony Glavin Trophy along with an award of €1,000 and within the same month won the Guildhall School’s internal prize for piano ensembles, the Ivan Sutton Chamber Music Award. This enabled him to play in the prestigious Bishopsgate Institute with his chamber group, Trio Amicorum. 2013 also saw Jonathan’s first performance in London’s famous Wigmore Hall, playing Michael Tippett’s virtuosic Piano Sonata No. 2.
Having completed his undergraduate studies, he studied for a master’s at Guildhall and planned to enter several competitions over the coming year including the Dublin International Piano Competition. Jonathan hopes to become more and more involved in various aspects of the music world, combining his keen interest in improvised music with classical music to bring it to a wider audience.
He auditioned in the states in late January 2016 and was subsequently offered a prestigious Graduate Assistantship to study at the University of Colorado at Boulder College of Music (home of the world-renowned Takács Quartet) with Dr. Andrew Cooperstock. He will be moving to the US in August 2016 to start his course. His hope is to make classical music more accessible to modern audiences through immersive live performances that are both tasteful and compelling, using classical improvisation as an intermediary between performer and audience.