Ronald Corp
Ronald Corp is a composer and conductor and founder and artistic director of the New London Orchestra and New London Children’s Choir, and musical director of the London Chorus and Highgate Choral Society.
He began conducting full-time in 1988 when he founded the New London Orchestra which celebrated its 20th birthday on 19 March at Cadogan Hall in a concert featuring his Piano Concerto performed by Leon McCawley. With the Orchestra he has appeared in all the main London venues and at major festivals around the country. Ronald Corp has made it his mission to breathe new life into a wealth of little known music from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the Orchestra’s excellent reputation in this area has led to numerous BBC broadcasts and 20 recordings on Hyperion, the latest of which released in spring 2008 features the Theatre Music of Lionel Monckton.
Ronald Corp’s engagements have included concerts and recordings with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Orchestra, the Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Radio and Television Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Bournemouth Sinfonietta. He has appeared many times at the BBC Proms and also works regularly with the BBC Singers, for whom he wrote a substantial choral work Dover Beach in 2005.
The New London Children’s Choir is one of the busiest and most successful children’s ensembles in the country. It also performs frequently abroad, throughout Europe and in the USA.
Ronald Corp’s first major choral work And all the Trumpets Sounded was premièred in 1989 by Highgate Choral Society, who commissioned it, and published by Stainer and Bell. His cantata Laudamus was premièred at St. John’s Smith Square in 1994 by the London Choral Society to great critical acclaim. Sainsbury’s commissioned him to compose a piece for the Farnham Youth Choir, winners in their section of the Sainsbury Choir of the Year Competition. A number of his works for voice are published by OUP. His String Quartet No 1 The Bustard received its première by the Maggini Quartet in February 2008 at Wigmore Hall.
Other large-scale compositions include Cornucopia for children’s choir and orchestra, commissioned by the National Association of Head Teachers in 1997. The cantata A New Song was premièred in May 1999. Mary’s Song was commissioned for the Beckenham Chorale, and Adonai Echad (The Lord is One) for Highgate Choral Society’s concert in the 2001 Hampstead and Highgate Festival. In May 2003 Highgate Choral Society premièred the Missa San Marco in St Mark’s, Venice. Corp also writes many works for community projects such as the New London Orchestra’s Urban Voices in Gospel Oak in 2003-04; and Waters of Time for Wells, Somerset in 2005-06. A CD of his choral music on the Dutton label (Forever Child) was released to great critical acclaim in 2006, performed by Voces Cantabiles directed by the composer, and in concert at Wigmore Hall in September 2007.
An expert in choral training and choral repertory, Ronald Corp’s comprehensive reference book entitled The Choral Singer’s Companion has been recently republished in a third edition.
www.ronaldcorp.com
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