LEADERSHIP TEAM

/  VICTORIA BARLOW Musical Director
/  RUSSELL JONES Chairman
/  STUART WILEMAN Secretary
/  TONY SOWTER Treasurer

MUSICAL DIRECTOR

/  VICTORIA BARLOW

Victoria studied music at Clarendon College, under Anthea Cator, and continued her studies at Newcastle and Huddersfield Universities.  After returning to Nottingham, she focused her attention on vocal work and performed with Nottingham Harmonic Society and Trent Opera.

From 2002 to 2011, Victoria was Director of Music, at St Mary’s RC High School, Chesterfield. She has conducted school choirs for over 16 years, and her school choirs have participated in BBC Choir of the Year competition and regional festivals, to great acclaim. They have also toured abroad, performing in Austria, Italy; where they sang Evensong at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and in the US, performing at St. Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral on 5th Avenue in New York.  Victoria was Assistant Conductor of the Derbyshire Youth Chorale, and was part of the Chorale’s tour of Japan, performing with Nagoya Harmonic Society.

Victoria has been the Musical Director of Cranwell Military Wives and was privileged to work with them on the BBC Beechey Boys project in collaboration with the University of Lincoln.

Victoria was Musical Director of Radcliffe on Trent MVC from June 2011 until 2016.  The choir toured the UK performing at many Cathedrals and for numerous charity events.  In October 2016 the choir took part in the 25th London Welsh Festival of Male Choirs at London’s Royal Albert Hall, where Victoria became the first female guest conductor to take to the podium in its 50 year history.

Since November 2016 she has been the Musical Director of the South Notts Men’s Chorus, and during its first year guided them to victory at the Derby Arts Festival and performing at the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod.

Educational work now being her focus she has a passion for encouraging others to be expressive with confidence, and a desire to demystify vocal technique. Her teaching career has been varied – from training trebles for the national opera houses, to boys on an Indian Mission station. She presently works with choral scholars at Cambridge University, has private teaching practices in London and Amsterdam, and gives performance classes at Morley College.

Ghislaine has directed workshops in Britain, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. She is the choral coach of Il Convitto Armonico and Studium Canticum, and is on the faculty of the Corso Internazionale Corale di Rimini, the Lacock Singing Courses, the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and Platinum Choral Workshops.

ACCOMPANIST

/  CARLY COLLINGWOOD

Carly studied BA Music Technology at Rose Bruford College London, specialising in Performance and composition. 

Following her studies she focussed on songwriting at New College Nottingham where she was Student Of The Year.  Later Carly and her band were Finalists in Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition in 2007.  They performed at the Festival and were then signed to the record label Light In The Attic Records in 2008, subsequently releasing a single. 

After a stint at recording, she performed solo throughout Europe with original songs, achieving airplay on BBC radio. 

On retuning on Nottingham, Carly resumed her piano studies with her current teacher Brenda May at the University of Nottingham, completing the DipABRSM in Piano Performance and in 2014 was winner and joint winner of the Beethoven and Bach advanced piano classes at Derby Arts Festival. 

Carly now enjoys work as an accompanist and Piano Teacher in various Nottingham schools while songwriting for others in her spare time.