Ian Hare - Chorus Master

(Cilla Grant - see below)

As an organ recitalist and accompanist, Ian Hare has performed widely in Britain and abroad, including France, Germany, Holland, and the USA. He has played at many of the major London venues, notably an appearance in the Proms. Recent performances have included tours of Canada and North America, engagements in Rome and Vienna, and recitals at Queen’s College, Oxford and King’s College, Cambridge. He has made several recordings, including broadcasts for radio and television. He is also a composer, specializing in choral and organ music, and has had a number of works performed and published in Britain and the USA.

From 1981 to 1989 he was Organist and Master of the Choristers at Cartmel Priory and then became Sub-Organist at Carlisle Cathedral until 1995. After founding the Lancaster Singers in 1975 he remained their Musical Director until 1989, conducting many choral works with orchestra and professional soloists. Currently, he is the Director of Music at Crosthwaite Church, Keswick, in the Lake District, where he has established the Music at Crosthwaite series of summer concerts. He also directs the Keswick Choral Society and is Chorus Master of the Cumbria Rural Choirs.

Having begun his musical training at Hymers College, Hull and at St Mary’s Church, Beverley, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the age of sixteen and studied in Paris with André Marchal. In 1968 he became the Organ Scholar of King’s College, Cambridge, under the direction of Sir David Willcocks. Following studies at the Royal College of Music and with Nadia Boulanger in France he was appointed Lecturer in Music at Lancaster University in 1974, subsequently becoming its first University Organist. He is in demand as a teacher, is an Associated Board Examiner, including work in the Far East.

For more information, see Ian's own web site.

CILLA GRANT (Piano)

Since studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Cilla has had a varied musical career – concerto soloist, repetiteur for two opera companies, orchestral pianist, resident pianist for instrumental courses including some run by the London Mozart Players' wind section, arranging standard SATB choral works for SSA, but mainly as an regular accompanist to several singers, particularly for Lieder recitals, and instrumentalists. For five years, Cilla was Principal Pianist for the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in the UK and USA, then toured with a revue on the life of Daphne du Maurier and was musician aboard a luxury cruise ship, playing piano and bagpipes. Since moving to Cumbria in 2003, she played for Cumbria Opera for three years and is currently pianist for Cumbria Rural Choirs, the Solway Singers, Gretna Choral and Cockermouth Harmonic Societies. She has been Official Accompanist for the Carlisle Music Festival, has played for concerts by the Penrith Singers, Keswick Choral Society, Wigton Choral Society, the Carnegie Singers and others, and is playing for Cumbria Opera's autumn 2010 concert. She has been pianist for the Lanercost Festival since its inauguration in 2004, for the Young Musician's Competition, for rehearsals of the Festival's major choral work, performing Rossini's Messe Solonelle with Ian Hare in 2005, Elgar's Sea Pictures with Carolyn Dobbin in 2007 giving two-piano concerts with David Sutton in 2006 and 2009 and playing in the performances of 'Edward' and Carmina Burana in 2008 and 2009.