|
|
|
|
|
About Every year Reading Male Voice Choir raises thousands
of pounds for local charities over a wide area with a concert every month. We have links with choirs in Europe
and usually tour abroad every two years. In recent years we have travelled to Düsseldorf, Innsbruck and the West Coast
of Ireland. In June of this year we gave two concerts in south Devon. Among its many achievements are: winning
the BBC’s national contest ‘Let the Peoples Sing’; joining the chorus of Die Fledermaus at Sadler's
Wells and performing with the bands of the Parachute Regiment and Life Guards before audiences of 3,000 at Cliveden. The
eighty-strong choir loves to entertain and delights in expressing itself through a wide-ranging repertoire of memorable and
moving songs. Off-stage the men enjoy an active social life. Wives and partners meet once a month and often
invite guest speakers. |
||||||||||||
|
GWYN ARCH MBE
our President
founded the Reading Male Voice Choir in 1971 and was the Musical Director until 2015.
He was Director of Music at Bulmershe College of Higher Education until his retirement in 1985. A Composition Fellow of Trinity College , London, and a Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music. He has composed hundreds of songs and choral works, particularly arrangements for both mixed and male voices. He is one of the most frequently performed arrangers of male choir music in the country. He examined for the Associated Board for ten years. Gwyn was awarded the MBE for services to music in Berkshire in the 2006 Queens Birthday Honours List |
Musical Director
Clive
Waterman Clive, former Head Teacher of South Lake Junior School in Woodley has always had a particular interest in
children’s musical development. Over many years he has enjoyed producing massed choir concerts for thousands of children
throughout Berkshire, and he also conducted and arranged the music for two teenage percussion groups (which included Dave
Arch of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ fame!) He now continues this work as Musical Director of Wokingham Borough Council’s
‘Music for All’ project. Each year this aims to give 800 primary children from over 30 schools the opportunity
to sing, dance and act in massed choir concerts at The Hexagon, Reading. In 2015, when our founder Gwyn Arch retired, Clive
became Musical Director of Reading Male Voice choir. He had been our Assistant MD for many years, having joined the choir
as accompanist while still a student! He also accompanied and sang with the Reading Phoenix Choir under Norman Morris.Clive
is well known throughout Berkshire for his enthusiastic musical involvement with both children and adults. In 2015 he was
presented with the Wokingham Borough Mayor’s Award, for his ‘unfailing hard work and enthusiasm in pursuit of
musical harmony’, and in 2019 the Rotary Foundation’s ‘Paul Harris Fellowship’ gold award, for his
‘long-term outstanding contribution to children’s music’, while also raising thousands of pounds for children’s
charities.
|
Accompanist
Hayley Tull. Hayley Tull began learning the piano at the age of five and the flute at the age of seven. She accompanied choirs under Gwyn Arch as a teenager and continued to perform with instrumental soloists when she moved to Japan in 1993. She played the flute and piccolo with a professional orchestra whilst in Tokyo. On her return to the U.K., Hayley taught the flute and piano at Berkshire Maestros where she also accompanied choirs, exams, competitions, recitals and masterclasses. She is currently Assistant Director of Music at Cheam School in Newbury where she also teaches the piano and continues to accompany exams, auditions and concerts. In addition, Hayley enjoys playing for a girls' choir and a violin group and she is the Principal Flute in the Slough Philharmonic. |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
