MEET THE TEAM
The work of the Chorus is supported by a committed and talented team from within the membership. Our musical training and direction is led by our professional Music Director, with the support of our répétiteur.
-
Ben combines a freelance portfolio as an accomplished conductor and keyboardist with a career in classical music management. Most recently working as an Artist Manager with James Brown Management in Cambridge he made high level creative, strategic, operational, and administrative provision to celebrated classical musicians of international renown.
An MA graduate of the University of York — where he achieved one of the highest marks ever awarded by the faculty — his studies with Professor Peter Seymour focussed on Baroque performance practice; specifically, the influence on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach by his European counterparts and their country’s cultures and practices.
Church music shaped much of his initial training and early career, and he has previously held positions at several of this country’s most eminent churches and cathedrals.
Equally at home at the organ, piano, harpsichord, and forte piano, he collaborates with both instrumentalists and singers as an accompanist, and as an ensemble and continuo player has worked with notable groups including The Royal Northern Sinfonia, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, The Sixteen, London Mozart Players, and BBC Philharmonic live on BBC Radio 3.
As a conductor he has worked with choral ensembles across a wide range of age and ability and has previously studied the art with Patrick Russill and Paul Brough. He is currently Music Director of King’s Lynn Festival Chorus, a one hundred strong choir, collaborating with distinguished soloists and ensembles to perform from a wide-ranging repertoire. Recent highlights include Johann Sebastian Bach’sMass in B minor, Duruflé’sRequiem, and a gala concert of Gilbert and Sullivan including a semi-staged performance of the one-act comic operaTrial by Jurywith soloists Sarah Fox and Simon Butteriss. He is also a guest conductor of The Fourth Choir, London’s LGBTQ+ chamber choir.
-
Jo Richards works as a piano teacher, freelance organist, and rehearsal accompanist to King’s Lynn Festival Chorus. After singing and playing the piano from a young age, Jo went to the musically renowned Trinity School, Croydon and was totally immersed in music making; singing, piano, organ, and even double bass. Jo has sung in two cathedral choirs, first at Southwark and then at Exeter, also gaining a degree in music and an organ diploma while there. Jo then spent two years at the Royal College
of Music, training as a repetiteur.Since then Jo has worked as a busy freelance musician in Surrey and more recently in Norfolk. Before moving to Norfolk Jo founded youth choirs in Banstead, Southfields and Coulsdon, directed the Chandos Choir, and spent twenty years as Director of Music at a number of Surrey churches.
Jo currently plays the organ for four small churches, and occasionally deputises at larger places including Wymondham Abbey and King’s Lynn Minster. Jo also inspires adult pianists of all ages and abilities, teaching at home in Thorpe St Andrew, near Norwich.
Jo has been rehearsal accompanist to KLFC since 2022.
Michelle Marple Chair
Ben Horden Music Director (ex officio)
Andy Hiles Treasurer
Nicola Berns Secretary
Sara Barns Membership secretary
John Bennett
Kevin Carruthers
Amanda Claydon
Fiona Ross
Penny Matkin Librarian
THE COMMITTEE
OUR PATRON
King’s Lynn Festival Chorus is delighted to have the patronage of The Marchioness Townshend.
Lady Townshend is, by her own admission, a lapsed violinist but hugely enjoys the instrument, having played in the chamber orchestra whilst studying at St Andrew’s University. She has a great love of singing, so it is particularly appropriate that she should agree to become the Chorus’s patron. Having lived in Norfolk now for over twenty-five years, she is actively involved in supporting her husband in the restoration of Raynham Hall and organises the twice yearly recital weekends, which contribute to funds for this enormous project. An active bell ringer, Lady Townshend served on the committee that masterminded the installation of a new ring of eight bells at East Raynham Church to celebrate the millennium.
Commenting on the announcement, Lady Townshend said “I am delighted and proud to be asked to serve as Patron of the excellent and highly esteemed King’s Lynn Festival Chorus and in particular to support their determination to bring performance out of a comfort zone into the lives of those who live in King’s Lynn and to areas further afield in Norfolk where they also hope to encounter some long unused voices participating in their workshops and the annual carol-a-thon. The results could be surprising and will certainly be life-enhancing.”