Stoneleigh Choral Society

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Haydn's Creation Oct 09
CONDUCTOR
 

Nigel Perona-Wright was appointed as the Musical Director of Stoneleigh Choral Society in June 2008. 

 

 

His musical career began as a boy chorister at Westminster Abbey. While a pupil at Whitgift school in Croydon, he passed his first diploma for flute playing at the age of seventeen, and he formed and conducted his own chamber choir. He went on to study flute, recorder and singing at the Royal Academy of Music, and took conducting lessons with Barry Wordsworth.  

 

 
Nigel was engaged to take a choir and instrumental ensemble to Hungary where he conducted Vivaldi's Gloria and Purcell's Come ye Sons of Art in a series of concerts for British Airways. Since then, he has conducted many works including Dvorak's Stabat Mater, Handel's Messiah, Britten's Noyes Fludde and The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins. 

 

Throughout his career, he has also been heavily involved in church music. For many years, he sang bass in the chapel choir of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and is currently Choir Director for the parish of Ashtead. In July 2008, he was one of seven musicians forming the music team for the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, providing both choral and instrumental music for the daily services.  

He is the director of the vocal and multi-instrumental quartet, Dragonsfire, specialising in British Renaissance and traditional music. The group perform throughout the UK and abroad, and they perform regularly at period venues such as Hever Castle, Hampton Court Palace and the Tower of London. They have also made several recordings, and performed at private events for Sting and Tom Cruise. Recent engagements took the group to the Middle East, where they sang on live television in front of the Emir of Qatar, and they appeared as medieval musicians in the film, 'Inkheart', starring Helen Mirren.  


 

ACCOMPANIST
We welcome Matthildur Gisladottir for our new season in Sep 2009.
Matthildur comes from Iceland and has just graduated from The Royal Academy of Music