Presidents and Patron
Bob Chilcott
President of Southend Boys’ Choir
Bob Chilcott is the current president of the Boys’ Choir succeeding Richard Hickox, Benjamin Britten and Sir Peter Pears.
As a composer, conductor, and singer, Bob Chilcott has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music, first as a chorister and choral scholar in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and for 12 years as a member of the King’s Singers. He became a full-time composer in 1997, and has produced a large catalogue of music for all types of choirs which is published by Oxford University Press. His most often performed pieces include Can you hear me?, A Little Jazz Mass, Requiem, and the St John Passion.
Bob has conducted choirs in more than 30 countries worldwide and has worked with many thousands of amateur singers across the UK in a continuing series of Singing Days. For seven years he was conductor of the Chorus of The Royal College of Music in London and since 2002 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers. In 2017 Bob was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by The Royal School of Church Music and in 2019 takes up the role of Principal Conductor Birmingham University Singers.
His music has been widely recorded by leading British choirs and groups including The King’s Singers, King’s College, Cambridge, Wells Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, The BBC Singers, The Bach Choir, Commotio, and Ora. In 2016 he enjoyed a collaboration with the celebrated singer Katie Melua on the album In Winter. In 2017 two new discs were released by Commotio and Choralis – All Good Things on Naxos, and In Winter’s Arms on Signum, his first recording collaboration with an American choir. Newer recording projects are with the BBC Singers, Houston Chamber Choir, and Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir.
Bob Chilcott wrote Laugh, Kookaburra for the Southend Girls’ Choir for their tour of Australia.
Photo by John Bellars
Jonathan Willcocks
President of Southend Girls’ Choir
Jonathan Willcocks was born in Worcester, England, and after early musical training as a chorister at King’s College Cambridge and an Open Music Scholar at Clifton College he took an Honours degree in Music from Cambridge University where he held a choral scholarship at Trinity College.
As a composer, Jonathan’s music is published by Oxford University Press, the Lorenz group of companies, MorningStar and Prime Music (represented in USA/Canada by MorningStar). His published music includes major choral works, music for children’s choir, many shorter
pieces (including anthems and secular choral music), orchestral and instrumental works. There are now many recordings of Jonathan’s music (see ‘Recordings’), and his music is frequently performed and broadcast in many parts of the world.
Jonathan is currently Musical Director of the Guildford Choral Society, the Chichester Singers, the Leith Hill Musical Festival and the professional chamber orchestra Southern Pro Musica, and freelance conducting and workshop engagements in recent seasons have taken him to many parts of the world including USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, China and most of the European countries as well as the United Kingdom. These engagements have seen him conducting concerts in many of the world’s finest concert halls, including the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Perth Concert Hall, Australia as well as closer to home in the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London and Symphony Hall in Birmingham.
Jonathan’s extensive choral and orchestral conducting experience results in many invitations to take choral workshops and adjudicate competitions. Although his career now focuses principally on his conducting and composition work, he has in past held major posts in general and specialist music education – most recently at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Jonathan succeeds his father Sir David Willcocks as President of Southend Girls’ Choir.
Raymond Gubbay CBE
Patron
Raymond Gubbay CBE is an impresario who has been at the forefront of promoting and producing opera, ballet and classical music in London, across the UK and around the world for over 50 years.
From humble beginnings in the mid-1960s, presenting concerts with just a handful of singers and a pianist, through to large-scale productions at the world’s largest concert halls, Raymond has introduced UK audiences to some of the most prestigious classical artists of our time. These include Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, Joseph Calleja, Rolando Villazon, Yehudi Menuhin, James Galway, Henry Mancini, Victor Borge and Kiri te Kanawa: in dance, he has co-produced seasons by New York City Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, Carlos Acosta, Sylvie Guillem, Bejart Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.
During a near thirty-year partnership with the Royal Albert Hall, Raymond has staged arena scale productions of La Bohème, Tosca, Carmen, Aida and Madam Butterfly plus Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, in partnership with English National Ballet.
Throughout his career, Raymond has championed the integration of innovative technology and visual effects into his productions, the results of which can be seen in Classical Spectacular which has been enjoyed by more than two million people around the world since 1989.
Raymond is proud to be an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music, London. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Gubbay’s autobiography entitled ‘Lowering the Tone and Raising the Roof’ was published in May 2021.
