Ronald Corp (born January 4, 1951) is a composer and conductor. He is founder and Artistic Director of the New London Orchestra and the New London Children's Choir; and Musical Director of the London Chorus and Highgate Choral Society.
Corp was born and grew up in Wells, Somerset. He studied music at Oxford University.
Conductor
editSee also New London Orchestra
Ronald Corp 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. Ronald Corp has made it his mission to bring to life a wealth of rarely performed music from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the Orchestra’s reputation in this area results in 20 recordings on Hyperion Records. The latest of these releases is a CD of pieces for string orchestra, written by the Polish female composer Grażyna Bacewicz.[1] His introductions from the stage are a key part of his mission to make music more accessible.
Corp’s engagements as a conductor 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 Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared many times at the BBC Proms[2] and works regularly with the BBC Singers, for whom he wrote a substantial choral work, Dover Beach in 2005.[3]
New London Children’s Choir
editSee also New London Children's Choir
The New London Children’s Choir was launched by Ronald Corp in 1991 with the aim of introducing children to the challenges and fun of singing and performing all types of music.is one of the busiest and most successful children’s ensembles in the country. The choir has commissioned more than 40 new pieces and has premièred numerous other works by the world’s leading composers including its patrons Louis Andriessen and Michael Nyman. It has performed frequently at the Proms, made a number of film soundtrack and TV recordings, including the soundtrack to Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace and been engaged for concerts and recordings with all the major London orchestras and opera companies. The choir and its members have appeared regularly in major London concert halls working with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and sing onstage at the English National Opera.
Composer
editRonald Corp always wanted to be a composer and began writing music even before he was taught to play the piano. Ronald Corp’s first major choral work And all the Trumpets Sounded was premièred in 1989 by Highgate Choral Society, who commissioned it. His cantata Laudamus (1994) was premièred at St John's, Smith Square by the London Choral Society (now the London Chorus) to great critical acclaim[4] and is published by Stainer & Bell.
In 1998, Corp was commissioned to write Four Elizabethan Lyrics for the Farnham Youth Choir, winners of their section of the Sainsbury Choir of the Year. These songs, along with Corp's Dover Beach, feature on a Dutton Release 'Forever Child and other choral music' which Corp conducted. Other compositions for children’s choir include Cornucopia (OUP), a cycle of songs with orchestra (1997), and its successor Kaleidoscope (2002). His Christmas opera Wenceslas was premiered in 1982 and performed again by the New London Children's Choir in 2008.
Orchestral works include a Piano Concerto written in 1997, Guernsey Postcards, commissioned by the Guernsey Camarata, Concerto Grosso and a Symphony. Corp's orchestrations of Erik Satie's Gnossiennes are featured in the film Chocolat (2000 film).
Other large-scale compositions include Cornucopia (1997) for children’s choir and orchestra; a Piano Concerto (1997) which has received 3 performances by pianists Julian Evans and Leon McCawley; the cantatas A New Song (1999), Mary’s Song (2001), and Adonai Echad (The Lord is One) for the Hampstead and Highgate Festival in 2001; song cycles including Flower of Cities (2000);
In 2003 BBC Radio 3 commissioned a major work for the BBC Singers - a setting of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach, and the String Quartet No.1 “The Bustard” premièred at the Wigmore Hall by the Maggini Quartet in 2008.[5]
Many of Corp’s compositions are now on CD including the Christmas Mass (“Hark! Chantage at Christmas” on EMI); Flower Songs and other children’s Choir works (NLCC on Naxos), and a selection of choral music, Forever Child (Voces Cantabiles on Dutton), released to great critical acclaim in 2006. Recordings of Corp's First Symphony and Piano Concerto, recorded by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in 2009, is due for release in 2010.
Works
editOrchestral
- Guernsey Postcards
- Gymnopedie no 2 (Satie)
- Piano Concerto
- A Purcell Suite
- Trois Gnossiennes (Satie)
- Symphony No.1
Choir with Orchestra
- Adonai Echad
- And all the Trumpets Sounded (Stainer and Bell)
- A New Song (OUP)
- Jubilate
- Laudamus
- Mary’s Song
Instrumental and Chamber
- Fanfare for Trinity (brass and timps)
- Homage to Martinu (flute and piano)
- Noel (organ solo)
- Pas de trios (flute, oboe and piano) (l982)
- Piece for bassoon and piano (1980)
- Piece for clarinet and piano (1981)
- Piece for oboe and piano (1980)
- Piece for violin and piano (1981)
- Priiditje + From the liturgy…(string trio)
- Rhapsody for double bass and piano
- Sarah’s Gavotte (recorder and piano)
- String Quartet No.1 “The Bustard”
- String Quartet No.2
Children's voices and instruments/orchestra
- All ye works of the Lord
- Cornucopia
- For A Child/For Billy
- Kaleidoscope
Unaccompanied SATB
- A rose bud by my early walk
- Beati (1980)
- Dover Beach
- Fear no more
- Forever Child
- Gaudete
- Grace – Praise God from whom all blessing flow
- Hodie (l986)
- I saw a fair maiden sitten and sing
- I sing of a maiden (l975)
- In Dulci Jubilo (1976)
- Infant holy (1976)
- Jingle Bells (barbershop)
- Litany
- Lute-book lullaby (Novello)
- Mary was watching tenderly
- Mass ‘Christ Our Future’
- Missa Brevis
- Missa San Marco
- Nunc dimittis
- O my dear heart
- Our Blessed Lady’s Lullaby
- Red River Valley (barbershop)
- Silent Night
- Susanni (Novello)
- The angel Gabriel
- The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn (l975)
- Three Shakespeare Songs (l983)
- Two part songs – Heraclitus; I strove with none
- When came in flesh
Songs
- Break, break, break (1966)
- Come away death (flute and guitar)
- Down in yon valley – and other songs (l983)
- Elizabethan songs – (for Naomi)
- Flower of Cities
- Miscellanie
- O admirabile (1972)
- O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth
- Perdita to Florizel (with flute) (1981)
- Portrait of the artists as a young poet (DHLawrence)(l981)
- The Bargain (1972)
- The Music of Catullus (1972)
- The Music of Clare
- The Music of Donne (1973)
- The Music of Drayton (with instruments)(1l971)
- The Music of Emily Dickinson (voice and guitar) (l974)
- The Music of Fletcher (l980)
- The Music of Housman
- The Music of Tennyson
- The Music of Whitman
- The Music of Wilde (1976)
- Three Elizabethan Songs (Sidney, Chapman, Shakespeare)
- Toward the unknown region
- When daisies pied (with flute and guitar)
External Links
editRonald Corp official website
Ronald Corp on Hyperion Records
Bacewicz CD on Hyperion Records
References
edit- ^ http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67783
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/04_april/25/proms_extras.shtml
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/schedule/2006/03/30/day/
- ^ http://ronaldcorp.com/#/laudamus/4532248977
- ^ http://www.instantencore.com/concert/details.aspx?PId=5013098
Category:Living People Category:English composers Category:English conductors Category:1951 births