In addition to her teaching, Alice is an experienced choral conductor. She worked as Musical Director of Haddo House Choral & Operatic Society, the Haddo Combined Treble Voice Choir and the Haddo Voices in one form or another from 1990 – 2017 in Aberdeenshire. After moving to Cornwall, she was MD for the University of Plymouth Choral Society from 2017 until she retired in May 2020.
Alice has always worked with non-auditioned singers, but nevertheless, her choirs of all ages achieved great success at local and national level. The Children’s Choir gained a first place in Scotland in Sainsbury’s Choir of the Year 2002, and the Youth Choir the same in 2004 (now called BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year). In 2006 she formed a choir made up of 80 non auditioned treble voices aged 11 – 82, taken from the 3 Haddo choirs (known as the Haddo House Combined Treble Voice Choir ‘HCTVC’) into Choir of the Year 2006. They not only won the Scottish heat, but qualified for the two finals down in Cardiff. They eventually walked away as overall runners up, having appeared on local and national TV and radio.
The choir again achieved an Open Choir of the Day certificate (Edinburgh heat) in the 2010 competition, making them top in Scotland again.
She trained HHCOS for many concerts and operas conducted by renowned guest conductors to professional and critical acclaim but she also trained and conducted them herself in major sell out concerts: such as Soiree Française, the Mozart Requiem, a French Concert, Haydn’s Nelson’s Mass and a concert performance of Dido and Aeneas, all with professional soloists and orchestra.
She also conducted sell out performances of The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance and Iolanthe with casts of all ages, most of the principals being her singing pupils.
Until may 2020, she trained and conducted UPCS. Performances included the Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle, the Faure Requiem, the Vivaldi Gloria,the Bach Magnificat and the Mozart Requiem alongside carols at Christmas, all in the the Minster of St Andrew’s in Plymouth. Covid restrictions meant she missed her final two concerts with the choir and retired at that time to devote more time to her daughter’s family to help with childcare.
As a chorus director, Alice strives to keep rehearsals with choirs fast and fun and to achieve the highest standard of performance possible with particular focus on vocal technique and performance detail. As a singer and singing teacher, Alice has a unique take on choral singing and choral singers really enjoy and appreciate the vocal techniques she imparts.
Alice is always happy to take choral workshops, deputise for other chorus masters within the area, adjudicate vocal and piano competitions and go into schools to do free singing workshops with young people.
Contact her for more information from here.
