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Benjamin Nicholas joined Stroud Choral Society as our conductor in September 2004. He is currently Director of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum and Director of Choral Music at Dean Close School, Cheltenham.
In addition to singing weekday evensong during term time in Tewkesbury Abbey, the Schola Cantorum regularly broadcast live on Radio 3 and have recorded 10 CDs of repertoire ranging from Palestrina and Sheppard to Lauridsen and Whitacre. Of their latest CD, "The Three Kings" on the Delphian label, the Church Times wrote "I doubt whether there are many more admirable choirs outside Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge than Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum."
Benjamin Nicholas has directed numerous first performances including three operas by John Caldwell and church music by Philip Wilby, Gabriel Jackson and Bob Chilcott. He has worked with a number of choirs including Oxford Chamber Choir, St Cecilia Singers and the Aldwyn Voices and is currently also musical director of Monmouth Choral Society. From October 2008 he will be a member of Merton College, Oxford where he will assist Peter Phillips with the establishment of the new choral foundation.
Born in 1976, Benjamin Nicholas studied music at Oxford University where he was organ scholar at Lincoln College. He was subsequently organ scholar at St Paul’s Cathedral and Director of Music at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea before moving to Tewkesbury Abbey in 2000.
Eddie Garrard, 1979 - 2004
When Eddie Garrard joined the choral
society in September 1979 he made Stroud Choral Society
history by being the first conductor in over 100 years to
have been chosen by the society members and not just the
choral committee. The Society had been looking for a
conductor that would take on the post long term and Eddie
has most ably fulfilled the condition. During his 25 successful years with the Society he persuaded us to try many new works as well as the traditional well loved choral pieces. His steady, unflappable leadership always helped us out of difficulties, musical or otherwise. Eddie was influential in the commissioning of a new work by John Sanders to celebrate the Society's 150th anniversary. John Sanders' 'The Cotswolds' had its inaugeral performance at the 50th Anniversary of the Stroud Festival.
Eddie was not just a talented musician, with that rare gift of perfect pitch, he was also able to combine getting the best out of a choir's talents, with allowing - indeed encouraging - them to enjoy a 'sing-song' too!
One of Eddie's most endearing qualities was his enthusiasm for involving young people in singing. On many occasions the children from Rose Hill School joined us in our concerts. His final concert with us, 'The Last Night of the Proms' in May 2004, was indeed a cheerful celebration by the whole Choral Society, and the many Stroud music lovers attending, of Eddie's 25 years with the Society and appropriately it was led with balloons and flags by the Rose Hill School Choir. A very happy ending to a long and devoted career as our conductor.
David Fysh, 1977 – 1979
Tony Hewitt-Jones, 1968 – 1977
(Left: Tony Hewitt-Jones, Right:
Leonard Keck)
County Music Advisor. The Society performed two of his
own works, The Battle of Tewkesbury, 1973, and the
commissioned work Return from a Far Country, 1976.
Eric Sanders, 1962 – 1968
Mark Foster, 1959 – 1962
Awarded the National Federation of
Music Societies’ ‘Sir Charles Groves
Prize’ in 1998, in honour of his long and tireless
work on behalf of music in the community.
Robert Clifford, 1958 – 1959
S W
Underwood, FRCO 1907 – 1958
Protégé
of Dr Herbert Brewer and also close friend of Dr Herbert
Sumsion. Collaborated with Ivor Gurney and Adrian Boult.
Awarded MBE in 1957.
J Edis
Tidnam, 1903 – 1906
Thomas Hackwood, 1892 – 1901
Thomas Brandon, 1873 – 1889
Supernumery
Lay Clerk of Gloucester Cathedral.
Richard
Mann, 1864 - 1869
Edward Brind, 1869 - 1870
Helmore,
Mann and Brind conducted other choirs during this period
and thought nothing of travelling weekly between Highnam,
Gloucester and Stroud, Cheltenham and Cirencester.
Frederick
Helmore, 1862 – 1863
Frederick
Helmore had the distinction of also being ‘Choir
Master to his late Royal Highness the Prince
Consort’.
James Chew, 1840s – 1856
Our
earliest known conductor, James Chew was presented with
an inscribed ebony and silver baton in 1850 for his
‘efficient and disinterested services to Stroud
Choral Society’. The baton eventually disappeared
after his death in 1899.
In 1970 the baton resurfaced in a junk shop in
Minchinhampton. A local historian, Howard Beard, bought
it and presented it to the Society. The Society’s
president Frank Miller, was custodian of the baton until
his death in 1974. The baton was then presented to Tony
Hewitt-Jones, the conductor at that time.
Unfortunately, following a burglary at the
Hewitt-Jones’ home, the baton disappeared again. A
few years later, by a strange coincidence, his son-in-law
discovered it in a Cheltenham junk shop. He added the
baton to a collection of old and unusual musical
instruments, unaware of the fact that it had been stolen
from the family home!
Some years later, on packing to move house, the baton
with its Stroud Choral inscription was recognised as our
long lost baton, and was returned to the Society by Anita
Hewitt-Jones, Tony’s widow.