TOM WILLIAMS - MUSICAL DIRECTOR

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Tom is currently Director of Music at St Matthew’s, Kensington Olympia, where he leads the newly established Music Foundation. He was for six years the Choral Director at St Martin-in-the-Fields where he directed the renowned church choir in services, concerts, on CD recordings and radio broadcasts, and on several international tours including visits to Paris and Johannesburg.

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In 2012, Tom founded award-winning chamber choir, The Erebus Ensemble, with whom he has appeared on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Scala Radio, and in concerts across the UK and Europe. The group was Ensemble-in-Residence at the Bristol Proms (Bristol Old Vic Theatre) and a prize winner at the inaugural London International Acappella Choir Competition at St John’s Smith Square. It enjoys a longstanding relationship with Harry Bicket and the English Concert and has appeared as the orchestra’s choral arm for performances at the Bridgewater Hall, Bath Abbey, Saffron Hall, Bristol Old Vic Theatre and at the Lausanne Festival in Switzerland. Erebus and the English Concert collaborated on a staged version of Handel’s Messiah (directed by Tom Morris), which was broadcast across eighty cinemas in the UK and Ireland. The Erebus Ensemble has produced two recordings and is currently working on a third album which will be released in celebration of its tenth anniversary in 2022.

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Tom is well known for his work with amateur singers and he currently conducts two choral societies: Nailsea Choral Society and the West Barnes Singers. He is in much demand as a choral workshop leader and gives frequent workshops and masterclasses in London and Bristol. He has also led workshops further afield, most recently in Brittany and Amsterdam. He enjoys giving talks on various aspects of choral music and has done so on topics ranging from Allegory in the Eton Choirbook, music of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, and on the Tintinnabuli style of Arvo Pärt. In 2013 Tom co-founded the Clifton International Festival of Music, of which he is Artistic Director. It has become a firm favourite in the classical music calendar of Bristol and the surrounding areas, and has played host to the many household names in the music industry including The Tallis Scholars, The King’s Singers, I Fagiolini, The Sixteen, Dame Gillian Weir and Crispian Steele-Perkins

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JAMES GOUGH - ACCOMPANIST

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James  studied with Huw Tregelles Williams OBE, Dr David Ponsford and Nicolas Kynaston at University of Bristol and then achieved MA in Organ Performance at the Royal Academy of Music

James gained the Fellowship Diploma of the Royal College of Organists and the Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music teaching diploma. He was also the recipient of the Eric Thiman Organ Prize for solo organ. He played for Elton John’s visit to the Academy and has performed abroad including in Neresheim Abbey (South Germany), Sweden, Denmark and France. James was also Organ Scholar at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street.

As a soloist James has played in St Paul’s, Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, The Temple Church, St Bride’s, and Bath Abbey. He has also premiered works by David Bednall and Diana Burrell, performances have included recitals at Westminster Abbey, Temple Church, and James performed the Six Trio Sonatas of J.S. Bach, alongside a lecture given by the Dame Gillian Weir at the Clifton International Festival. His recording of those sonatas is due to be released for the cathedral's 50th anniversary this year. He also performed the complete organ works of Cesar Franck to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth last year at Southwark

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