Richard White and The Phoenix Singers of Shrewsbury

The Phoenix Singers of Shrewsbury is looking for a new conductor for September 2009, on the retirement of Richard White.

Richard (born.1930) has been conducting choirs and orchestras for almost 60 years, and has been with the choir since 1968, when he became Music Adviser for the County of Shropshire. In that post, in addition to his work in schools and with adult music societies, he directed the instrumental teaching and the activities of numerous orchestras and bands.

His belief in the importance of the arts in fostering international friendship and understanding resulted in many overseas tours - many of them with the Phoenix Singers- to nine different European countries including Russia (some of them several times), and also to Canada (three times). All such visits were based on the importance of home stays, with reciprocating visits to the homes of musicians in Shropshire. In the year 2000, he was the recipient of the National Federation of Music Society’s Sir Charles Groves Award for his contribution to music in the community.

The Phoenix Singers, a choir of up to 40 members drawn from many parts of Shropshire, came into being in 1965. It is wide-ranging in its choice of music, unaccompanied and accompanied. For instance, in a concert marking the new millennium, each of the last ten centuries was represented, ranging from plainsong through Tallis’s motet in 40 parts, Purcell’s funeral music with brass, Bach’s Singet dem Herrn for double choir, to Bruckner, Rachmaninov and the 20th century, all linked together by a specially-commissioned work by the distinguished composer Robert Sherlaw Johnson.

With orchestras, the choir has performed music by many composers and including all the major works of Bach, not least the Mass in B minor several times, and a number of his cantatas. Purcell’s semi-opera, The Fairy Queen, has been performed in a fully-staged production. A cappella singing has included music by Debussy, Naylor and Poulenc and others from the 20th century, not least commissions from Richard Lloyd and Sally Beamish. In the National Federation of Music Society’s Adopt-a-Composer scheme, the choir worked with Nicolas Brown. During a period in which W.Midlands Arts offered an award for adventurous programme-planning, the choir won it in two successive seasons.

The choir believes strongly in working with others, and has performed in concerts together with orchestras, handbells, recorders, brass and woodwind. With dancers it has performed works by several major composers, including Respighi and Vaughan Williams, as well as large-scale dance-dramas by its conductor, Richard White, in Shropshire and farther afield including Westminster Abbey.

Strong links have been forged with musicians from other countries and since 1982 the choir has sung in Estonia, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Russia, in some cases several times and choirs and orchestras from these countries have been brought to Shropshire.

Currently, a member of the choir, who is an accomplished pianist, is available for accompaniment, when needed.