Ronald
Corp is 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. With the Orchestra he has appeared in all the
main London venues and at major festivals around the country.
The Orchestra has a gained an excellent reputation for its innovative
programming and for its acclaimed recordings on Hyperion, and
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, as well as commissioning many new works.
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 has written a substantial choral work, Dover Beach.
The
New London Children’s Choir is one of the busiest
and most successful youth choirs in the country, and also performs
frequently abroad including throughout Europe and in the USA.
Ronald Corp has conducted the choir in numerous concerts, recordings
and a television workshop as part of the Young Musician of the
Year. The choir’s other engagements have included the premières
of over 35 commissions as well as works by leading composers
including its patrons Andriessen and Nyman; performances at the
Proms; numerous soundtracks and TV recordings; and concerts and
recordings with all the major London orchestras and for the BBC.
Ronald
Corp is also a composer and his first major choral work And
all
the Trumpets Sounded was premièred in 1989 by
Highgate Choral Society, who commissioned it, and is 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 and its third performance was
given at a Gala concert in the Royal Festival Hall. 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.
Four Elizabethan Lyrics is published by the Oxford University
Press, for whom Ronald
Corp
is also editing a series of publications for upper voices.
Recent
compositio
ns
include Cornucopia, a major choral work for children’s choir and orchestra, which was commissioned
by the National Association of Head Teachers and premièred
in Leicester in 1997. The première of the Piano Concerto
was given by Julian Evans in a New London Orchestra concert in
1997 as part of its ‘British Concertos’ series, and
the cantata A New Song was premiered in May 1999. Recent performances
include the premières of two major choral works – Mary’s
Song for the Beckenham Chorale, and Adonai Echad (The Lord is
One) for the Highgate Choral Society’s concert in the 2001
Hampstead and Highgate Festival. In May 2003 the 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.
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.
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