Choir Leadership & Management
Robert Marshall
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Robert enjoys a distinguished career as a conductor, choir trainer and singer and is currently also leading and transforming the Melrose Music Festival as its first Artistic Director.
He graduated from Edinburgh University with an Honours degree in music having sung as a Lay Clerk at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh. As a singer he performed regularly with the professional ensemble Cappella Nova with whom he toured and made recordings, as well as singing solo oratorio/evangelist roles.
As a conductor, and whilst still at University, Robert won scholarships to study conducting in London and Dublin, the latter with Janos Fürst and the New Irish Chamber Orchestra. He co-founded and directed the Edinburgh University Chamber Orchestra and was for 5 years the assistant Musical Director and Chorus Master of Edinburgh Grand Opera, working with them on a variety of productions in the King’s Theatre there.
He also founded the Glasgow Chamber Choir and was the Chorus Master of the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union for over 7 years, acknowledged by The Scotsman as the “vision and driving forward behind a creative revolution” with the Choral. During that time, he worked with conductors such as Roderick Brydon, Simon Halsey, Garry Walker, and Martyn Brabbins, and orchestras including the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the SCO, and the Scottish Ensemble, on such works as Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Britten’s War Requiem, and Rachmaninov’s The Bells. He produced and directed the Choral’s first commercial CD. During his career he has sung in and conducted many world premieres including works by Kenneth Leighton, Sir James MacMillan, and Cecil Coles.
-
Michael Wood
CHAIR
Michael grew up in a very musical family and followed his five older brothers’ lead in being a chorister at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh. While a treble in the Cathedral choir, he was a pupil at St Mary’s Music School where he also studied piano and ’cello.
After a music scholarship at Shrewsbury School and a life thus far of always being busy making music in some form or another, Michael went on to the University of Oxford, opting not to pursue a choral scholarship at one of the choral foundations but instead to join his brother’s chapel choir at Exeter College, regularly depping at Magdalen and singing with a few smaller ensembles along the way.
When Michael returned to Edinburgh for a PhD, he couldn’t resist the pull of the Anglican choral tradition, and so became a countertenor lay clerk in St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, where, alongside daily services, he sang in countless concerts, radio broadcasts, and films, as well as appearing on several CDs. After a decade of being a lay clerk, Michael moved to the Borders where he works as a counsellor and psychotherapist and enjoys singing in a few local groups as well as playing in the Borders Chamber Orchestra.
-
Jon Aldridge
TREASURER
-
Alison Fraser
SECRETARY
Born in Northern Ireland, Alison studied piano, singing and violin at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She was a music teacher in Scottish Borders Primary Schools for twenty years.
She has always sung in a choir. She sang in the Chapel Choir at Methodist College, Belfast, the Chamber Choir at RSAMD, Dundee Choral Union and Edinburgh Royal Choral Union. She was the co-founder with Colin Fox of Abbey Consort and now sings with the Scottish Chamber Choir and the Borders Chamber Choir.
As well as being the accompanist for Berwick Arts Choir, she is the conductor of the Yetholm Village Choir.
She is married with two sons who, along with her husband, are all accomplished brass players.