Born in Carlisle in 1957 and educated at Chetham’s School of Music, where he is now a Governor, David was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists at the tender age of 17. He took an organ scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge under the direction of Dr George Guest and returned to the college as Director of Music from 2003-2007. His previous posts have included Master of the Music at Winchester Cathedral (1987-2002), Music Director of The Waynflete Singers (1987-2002) Master of the Music at Westminster Cathedral, Musical Director of the Alexandra Choir (1980-87) and Associate Conductor and then Artistic Director of the Philharmonia Chorus (1986-1997). On 10 March 2018 the Royal College of Organists conferred on David its highest honor, the RCO Medal,” in recognition of distinguished achievement in choral conducting and organ playing.

David is in great demand for choral training workshops worldwide and his handbook on the subject Giving Voice was published in 1995. He is a choral advisor to music publishers Novello, for whom he has edited a number of publications. As an organist, David Hill has given recitals in most of the major venues in the UK and has toured extensively abroad.David Hill’s broad-ranging discography of over 70 recordings, including many award-winners, can be found on the for Decca/Argo, Hyperion, Naxos and Virgin Classics labels. The discs span repertoire from the renaissance to the present day.

With The Bach Choir David Hill has contributed to the film sound tracks of Kingdom of Heaven, The Chronicles of Narnia and Shrek the Third. He is engaged in a series of recordings of major English choral composers with The Bach Choir and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra for Naxos. Hill has appeared as guest conductor with the London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Sinfonia 21, the Northern Sinfonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonqiue de Strasbourg as well as the Netherlands Radio Choir and RIAS Kammerchor, Berlin.

Since returning to Nova Scotia, after completing her graduate studies at University of Toronto, Paula Rockwell has been steeped in musical projects, performances and music festivals in her home province, Canada and the United States. She teaches Applied Voice, Diction for Singers, Scene Studies and the Singing Actor at her alma mater Acadia University and creates productions for Acadia’s Singing Theatre Ensemble, where she is the artistic director.

Paula has been featured on several recordings and co-produced her debut CD entitled Fleeting Melodies, a collection of 20th century art songs and arias. Paula has taken on several operatic roles since graduate school, working with the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto’s Opera in Concert, Vancouver Opera, Tidal Opera, Orchestre Baroque de Montreal, Opera Nova Scotia and Maritime Concert Opera.She has performed with Symphony Nova Scotia, The Chorus of Westerly (Rhode Island), North York Philharmonic (Ontario), Symphony New Brunswick, Peterborough Singers (Ontario), and The Music Room Chamber Series in Halifax, as well as for many fundraisers, including Music for Haiti, Women Only at Pier 21, and the annual Opera Nova Scotia’s Opera Valentine.

Paula is heard every summer giving masterclasses, vocal warm-up sessions and a recital at The Ogontz Choral Symposium in Lyman, New Hampshire. She adjudicates music festivals on the Provincial and National levels and gives clinics/masterclasses on the topic of vocal pedagogy, interpretation and stage craft.

Paula will be working on new projects including a recording of original works – Unwrapped – and a one woman show entitled Letters from Home, from her sabbatical project of January 2015. Recent projects include directing and creating Scenes from Street Scenes by Kurt Weill, an opera excerpt show entitled The B Boys of Opera and a musical theatre excerpt program entitled The Games People Play in Musicals: Chess & The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and directing in 2016 Grease – The Musical for Acadia’s Singing Theatre Ensemble.

Paula was soloist with Acadia University’s Choral production of Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. She also was the vocal coach for Halifax Summer Opera Workshop productions of Bizet’s Carmen and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. She sang the alto solo in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Symphony New Brunswick in May 2014 and performed it again in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in April 2016. She has performed with the Halifax-based contemporary music group Musikon at the Saint Mary’s Art Gallery and at a recent Garden Room Concert Series recital entitled “Sing the Trumpet” at Acadia University with trumpeter Curtis Dietz and collaborative pianist Jennifer King. This concert was performed again in September 2016 at the Indian Brook Concert Series in Cape Breton.

In May 2016, Paula sang the mezzo-soprano solo in Verdi’s Requiem with The Chorus of Westerly and in August performed a recital in New London and Lyman (New Hampshire) with American collaborative pianist, Geoffrey Wieting. In May 2017, Paula sang the lead role in Opera Nova Scotia’s production of Gustav Holst’s opera Savitri. This year she is the artistic director of the Canadian musical Pélagie, written by Allen Cole, which will be performed at Acadia University in April 2018.

George Kent has devoted his life to raising the artistic standards of his home community of Westerly as well as Rhode Island and New England as a whole. The Chorus of Westerly, which he founded in 1959, is now widely known as a Rhode Island performing organization of reliable artistic excellence.

George Kent has always believed in the ability of young children to learn the great choral scores of music literature and since 1959 he has been teaching to youngsters age eight and over such works as Bach’s B minor Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Benjamin Britten’s Spring Symphony, and Brahms’ incomparable Requiem. Generations of children have, with George Kent’s training, developed a lasting love of music.

During his tenure with the Chorus he directed over 2,500 singers spanning the ages of eight to eighty-eight, toured with the Chorus twice in Britain (1981 and 1995) and once in Italy (1987) and performed in Providence and in Westerly. Mr. Kent has taught music at Rhode Island colleges and universities for over forty years. He served as Assistant Music Director and, in 1986, as Acting Music Director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and during that tenure performed the orchestra’s Young Person’s Concerts as well as the regular scheduled classical and Pops concerts.

In September 1988 Mr. Kent was awarded one of Rhode Island’s coveted Governor’s Arts Awards. In 1995 the Chorus of Westerly earned the Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island’s Jabez Gorham Award for excellence in the arts. He has received the Award for Excellence in Music from the South County Center for the Arts (1998), the Lifetime Achievement Award from Choral Arts, New England (1999) and the History Maker’s Salute Award from the Rhode Island Historical Society (2001). Mr. Kent received the Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island’s Award for Individual Achievement (2004) and was named a distinguished alumnus by New England Conservatory (2003). In May 2006, Mr. Kent received the prestigious Pell Award, honoring Senator Claiborne Pell and recognizing artistic excellence both in Rhode Island and nationally.

With the Chorus of Westerly George Kent has presented ten US premieres of major 20th Century British works for chorus and orchestra. On three occasions the Chorus brought the composers of those works (William Mathias, Lux Aeterna in 1984; Paul Patterson, Mass of the Sea in 1990 and Millennium Mass in 2001) to lecture on their music in Westerly and at Brown University and the University of Rhode Island.

George Kent brought Britain’s eminent choral conductor, Sir David Willcocks, to the US and collaborated with him from 1990-2010 at the annual Choral Workshop held each summer at Ogontz Camo in Lyman, New Hampshire. This summer program has also included other sessions with Richard Marlow, Herbert Bock, James Litton, and currently, David Hill.George Kent has been Organist/Choirmaster at Christ Church, Westerly, since 1956 and in May 1996 was awarded an honorary doctorate from New York’s General Theological Seminary for his outstanding contribution to church music in America.