About Alice

The full story

Alice E Dennis BEM GTCL LTCL (PftT) FISM was born near Manchester to Guardian music critic Gerald Larner and writer Celia. She started piano lessons at four years old with the late RNCM teacher Marjorie Clementi, completing a 100% record of distinctions in her piano exams with Grade 8 at fourteen.

She also studied singing with RNCM teacher Caroline Crawshaw, passing all exams including Grade 8 with distinction, and took lessons in percussion and flute.

Alice went on to study piano with the late Fanny Waterman in Leeds and with concert pianist Peter Donohoe, before going to Trinity College of Music in London. There she studied with Eva Bernatova (piano) and Valerie Cardnell (singing), gaining a teaching diploma (LTCL) and an honours music degree (GTCL). In London she met her future husband Jerry, whom she married after graduating. The family then moved to Edinburgh, where their two children Matt and Eleanor were born.

In 1990 the family moved to Aberdeenshire, where Alice became involved with the Haddo House Choral & Operatic Society and became Musical Director of the Haddo Children's Theatre and Junior Choir. She built up a large teaching practice at the same time, and continued her singing studies with Raimund Herincx at the North East of Scotland Music School.

Alice reformed and led the Haddo Voices, often numbering over 100 young singers, for more than 20 years, winning awards at local and national level. In 2006 she led the Haddo Combined Treble Voice Choir to UK-wide success in the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year competition, where they were overall runners-up, appearing on radio and television.

In 2004 she became Chorus Director for HHCOS and was later appointed Musical Director following the death of its founder June Gordon, Lady Aberdeen. In 2012 Alice spearheaded the creation of the Haddo Arts Festival.

In 2017 she was appointed Musical Director of the University of Plymouth Choral Society, retiring from the role in May 2020.

Alice's daughter Eleanor Dennis is a professional soprano who learned to sing with her mother and with the choirs at Haddo House.

She now teaches a busy practice in Marazion, near Penzance. Her pupils and choirs regularly win first places in music festivals and gain exceptional exam results.
She has had pupils accepted into the Royal College of Music, the Royal Northern College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music, Trinity College of Music, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Leeds College of Music, the Arts Educational Schools London, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and many university music departments.

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