Highgate Choral Society, North London

Ron Corp Ronald Corp, musical director

Celebrated conductor and composer Ronald Corp has been musical director of Highgate Choral Society since 1985. Under his guidance, the choir has built up an enviable reputation, not just for the high quality of its singing, but for championing newly-commissioned or rarely performed works.  

We are delighted that Ronald Corp was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours List 2012: 'I am thrilled. It is wonderful to be able to share my passion for music and to have it recognised in this way. It gives me renewed vigour to continue composing, conducting, directing children and adults and bringing increasing numbers of people closer to music.'

In July 2011, the choir hosted an evening at the Royal Festival Hall to celebrate Corp’s 60th birthday. Two pieces that the choir had commissioned Corp to compose – And all the Trumpets Sounded and The Wayfarer – featured in the programme and earned critical plaudits. Corp ‘writes with impressive technical accomplishment,’ wrote music critic Michael White. ‘His music works. It's confident, dramatically astute and pitched at the right level to be challenging but not impossible for amateurs… So here's to someone who seems ... to be producing new works like there are no tomorrows. May there actually be plenty.’  

Corp is also musical director of the London Chorus and founder and artistic director of the New London Orchestra and New London Children’s Choir. As a conductor, he has regularly worked with the BBC Singers and a range of orchestras, including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the RTE Concert Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Radio and Television Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.   If you are interested in finding out more about Ronald Corp, visit www.ronaldcorp.com