Ronald Corp OBE is Musical Director of The London Chorus, New London Children’s Choir and Highgate Choral Society. He is also Artistic Director of New London Orchestra and New London Children’s Choir, both of which he founded, respectively, in 1988 and 1991.
Among his extensive discography as a conductor are award-winning Hyperion discs of British Light Music Classics (1996 to 2002) with New London Orchestra and an acclaimed recording of Rutland Boughton’s opera, The Queen of Cornwall (2010).
Corp is well known as one of Britain’s most prolific choral composer-conductors, and in recent years has become an increasingly established composer of orchestral and chamber music. His compositions include Symphony, Piano Concerto, Cello Concerto, and the orchestral triptych Guernsey Postcards, which all feature on CDs on the Dutton Epoch label. Other works include The Wayfarer (In Homage to Mahler), which was given its world première at a Royal Festival Hall concert in July 2011, and This Sceptr’d Isle, also for choir and orchestra, which was given its première in a June 2012 Barbican concert with Highgate Choral Society, marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Releases on CD include The Songs of Ronald Corp sung by Mark Stone; Dhammapada, a setting of Buddhist texts for chamber choir; Things I Didn’t Say, a work in which a son deals with the death of his mother from Alzheimer’s disease; three String Quartets, a Clarinet Quintet (Crawhall), and a setting of The Yellow Wallpaper. His most recent works are Songs of the Elder Sisters and Lullaby for a Lost Soul. The latter three pieces have been choreographed by Chantry Dance Company as a triple bill – Corp de ballet. His cello concerto was issued on CD in January 2015. Recent projects include The Pelican, an opera based on Strindberg’s play, and a song cycle for baritone and ensemble – Fields of the Fallen – settings of poems by German and British poets who died in the first world war (also now issued on CD). Other commissions include An Essex Posy for the Chigwell Choir, Riddle Me This for the Frinton Festival, and Behold the Sea, commissioned by Highgate Choral Society and premiered by them, The London Chorus and the New London Children’s Choir at the Royal Festival Hall in March 2016. His latest work is Letters from Lony, a setting of letters written by a Jewish grandmother in Nazi controlled Amsterdam to her newly born grandson in England. This was premiered by Sarah Pring with the Chilingirian Quartet and pianist Andrew Brownell at the Proms at St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb in June 2017. His experience and expertise in choral directing are crystallised in the textbook The Choral Singer’s Companion, which is now in its third edition.
Ronald Corp was awarded an OBE for services to music in the Queen’s 2012 New Years Honours. He has been made an Honorary Doctor of Music by Anglia Ruskin University and has received an Hon D Mus from University of Hull.
Contact Details:
Website: www.ronaldcorp.co.uk
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud/ronaldcorp
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Corp
Ronald is happy to make PDFs of his scores available for anyone who would like to view his work.
