The team

We have invited leading experts in the industry to help you get the most out of our Retreat

Robert Rice

Robert Rice enjoys a varied career as a performing baritone and singing teacher. Well known for oratorio, consort singing and contemporary music, he has sung in the majorUK venues and widely abroad. His most recent performances include premières of Errolyn Wallen and Howard Goodall, while ongoing projects include a collaboration with composer Jill Jarman, Chelys Viol Consort and percussionist Evelyn Glennie. In addition to a thriving private studio, Robert teaches at Clare, Jesus and King’s Colleges of Cambridge University, King’s College, London and Lincoln Cathedral. A vocal coach for the London Symphony Chorus, he also gives workshops, adjudicates singers and arranges for voices.

Anita Morrison

Anita is particularly known for her teaching of trebles and taught the choristers of Westminster Cathedral for nearly 30 years (from 1990-2019). She was awarded anHonorary ARSCM in 2017 in recognition of her outstanding work in this area following the publication of her vocal health for choristers book ‘The Chorister and the RacingCar – A Guide to High Performance Singing’. She currently teaches the choristers at St.George’s Windsor Castle, St. John’s College Cambridge, London Oratory Schola Cantorum and Cardinal Vaughan Schola Cantorum. She also teaches the choral scholars of Selwyn College Cambridge, is a vocal coach to The London SymphonyChorus and has a busy private teaching practice.

An intrinsic belief in the importance of good body use led Anita to train as a Feldenkrais Practitioner. She teaches regular classes and workshops and has given Feldenkrais workshops for singers at the GSMD, Leeds College of Music and for VoiceWorkshop and the British Voice Association.

Nicki Kennedy

Nicki Kennedy has enjoyed an extremely varied career as a singer. As a soloist she has performed and recorded with many of the leading ensembles in the baroque and classical field, such as the Musiciens du Louvre, Netherlands Bach Society, the Parlement de Musique, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestre des Champs–Elysées, Modo Antiquo and the choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

As a session musician Nicki sang with London Voices and Metro Voices and can be heard on the sound tracks of Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hobbit and many, many others.

Nicki has taught and given masterclasses in Spain, France and the Czech Republic and is a regular vocal teacher and consultant for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, and for the Rodolfus Foundation.She has been Head of Singing in two UK schools and has taught Choral Scholars at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. She is a specialist in vocal health and rehabilitation.

Will Dawes

Will Dawes is Director of Chapel Music of Somerville College, Oxford, and Director ofMusic at the church of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford. He was the founding Director of Frideswide Voices, now the girl choristers of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. He is a graduate of Edinburgh University and the Royal Academy of Music, and has directed numerous excellent choral societies and chamber choirs across the UK. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2018.

Will is active as a consort singer and is a member of the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Stile Antico. The group performs all over the globe, including concerts in Wigmore Hall, Colombia, South Korea, and the USA. He is a former Lay Clerk of ChristChurch, Oxford, and has sung with Collegium Vocale Gent, The Eric Whitacre Singers, the Gabrieli Consort and Polyphony.

Elizabeth Hayley

Elizabeth’s career has taken her all over the world, including appearances in Sweden atThe World Clown Congress, in Canada giving masterclasses & recitals, in Jamaica as music educator, touring Ireland as Assistant MD for ‘Side by Side’ by Sondheim, in the UK as soloist in piano concertos & conducting award-winning choral/operatic societies, playing with world-renowned groups such as The Pump Room Trio in Bath and The PasadenaRoof Orchestra.

As a former Classical and Jazz Examiner for ABRSM she enjoyed frequent work across Asia, and as a sought-after and versatile accompanist has performed with acclaimed artistes such as trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins, trombonist GordonCampbell, singers Benjamin Luxon, Rupert Charlesworth, Elizabeth Watts, & worked onstage with actress Dame Harriet Walter. She is passionate about teaching and coaching young musicians, and works at St Catherine’s School Bramley and Eton College.