Bob Chilcott has rapidly become one of Britain’s best known composers of choral music. A large part of his work as a composer and conductor has been created for young choirs - one of his pieces which includes sign language, Can you hear me?, has become one of the most performed pieces for children’s choirs worldwide. He has also written extensively for mixed choirs, and in 2002 a collection of his sacred works was published in by Oxford University Press. In the coming year, two new projects in conjunction with Oxford University Press will appear - Christmas Spirituals for Choirs, produced together with Ken Burton, and a new series for young choirs, together with Peter Hunt.
In 2003 his work Tandem for two orchestras, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Making Music will receive its first performance as part of National Orchestra Week by the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Kensington Symphony Orchestra. Friendship is our World, an extended work for upper voice choir and orchestra will receive its première by the School of St Helen and St Katharine in Abingdon in May. Also due to receive is first performance is a new piece Follow the Leader!, written for massed choirs from Lancashire Schools in conjunction with percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Later in the year a new work for male chorus will be performed for the first time by its two commissioners, Chor Leoni in Vancouver, Canada, and Orphei Dränger in Uppsala, Sweden.
Bob also has a flourishing career as a choral conductor and animateur. He records and gives concerts regularly with the BBC Singers, with whom he is Principal Guest Conductor. He will make his debut in Berlin with one of Germany’s finest professional chamber choirs, The RIAS Kammerkor, in early 2004. In 2003 he will enter his seventh season as conductor of the Chorus at the Royal College of Music in London. As well as giving workshops in his own country, he will also conduct the Master Conductor Programme for AmericaFest in Phoenix, Albuquerque and Tuscon, conduct at the Suase! Festival in Cape Breton, Canada, at the Pannonika Festival in Hungary, and will be the first conductor from outside the American continent to conduct a National Honor Choir at the American Choral Directors’ Convention in New York City.
