Jo Richards is a versatile musician who grew up singing, playing the piano, and later the organ. Even in the push chair, Jo was rewarded for singing with apples at the greengrocers. With three generations of pianists in the family, Jo had it in the blood, with sight reading and improvising skills developing early by playing at every spare moment. Jo’s church career started with a knock on the door. The boy over the road wanted to earn £1 for introducing Jo to the choir. He got his pound and Jo had unlocked another musical door. Singing in a church choir lead to being asked to play the organ, and a very musical school provided a wealth of amazing experiences.

Jo sang in the cathedral choirs at Southwark and Exeter, picking up the ARCO organ diploma, and graduating in music from Exeter University, and then spent two years training as a répétiteur at the Royal College of Music. In a busy freelance career, Jo has been the director of music at several churches, including St Barnabas Southfields, where Jo built a choir of twenty from scratch, has run several youth choirs, and conducted the Chandos Choir for nine years. Jo accompanied the East London Chorus, Surrey Opera and Medway Opera. Jo has also maintained a busy teaching career with as many as forty pupils when based in Surrey. Jo has been a published composer, writing choral pieces and a lot of piano pieces dedicated to young pupils.

The 2016 move to Thorpe St Andrew was a spur of the moment decision, but has enabled Jo to experience being organist at Ranworth, South Walsham and more recently North Walsham, and to discover lots of country churches with dusty old organs. Jo has also been accompanist of the Framingham Earl Singers, but now much prefers the long long drive to King’s Lynn, as it happens to be the perfect length for a CD!

www.jorichardsmusic.com

Ben is an accomplished artist forging a diverse career as a keyboardist and choral conductor with a passion and affinity for music of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries.

An MA graduate of the University of York, Ben’s 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 Ben’s initial training and early career and he has previously held positions at a number of England’s churches and cathedrals. Chief amongst his now varied portfolio as a freelance musician is his work at the University of York as an accompanist, teacher of organ, and teaching assistant and performance coach on the MA Baroque Performance Practice course.

Ben appears regularly in his capacity as a solo artist, with recent and forthcoming highlights including the internationally acclaimed York Early Music Festival, the London Handel Festival and the King’s Lynn Festival. In July 2021, he will commit to disc selected works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Dietrich Buxtehude in his debut solo album. Ben has accompanied many young aspiring singers in recitals of Baroque vocal music as well as art song and lieder.

He often collaborates with instrumentalists and ensembles as an accompanist and continuo player, including The Royal Northern Sinfonia, Yorkshire Baroque Soloists, and the BBC Philharmonic, with whom he has appeared in concert live on BBC Radio 3.

Ben is the Music Director of the King’s Lynn Festival Chorus and an Associate of the Come and Sing Company, with whom he engages in a wide-ranging outreach programme.

www.benhorden.com