Ronald Corp
Ronald Corp
Biographies
Ronald Corp
A short portrait
Thomas Völker
&
A Look Into The Mind of a Composer
Anthony Cheng
A short portrait
Thomas Völker
&
A Look Into The Mind of a Composer
Anthony Cheng
Short Biography
Ronald Corp OBE is founder and Musical Director of the New London Orchestra (1988), and the New London Children’s Choir (1991-2023). He is also Musical Director of the London Chorus and the Highgate Choral Society. He has worked with the BBC Singers, the BBC Concerto Orchestra and various orchestras here and abroad. Among an extensive discography are his award-winning Hyperion discs of British Light Music Classics. His own compositions include four symphonies, two piano concertos, concertos for flute recorder and cello, three string quartets and a clarinet quintet. His choral works include large sacred cantatas (including ‘And all the trumpets sounded’) and shorter works for unaccompanied choir including Dover Beach, commissioned for the BBC Singers. He has written over one hundred songs and significant cycles include ‘Fields of the Fallen’ and ‘Letters from Lony’ as well as the scena ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Operas include ‘The Ice Mountain’ (for children) and ‘The Pelican’
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Long Biography
Ronald Corp is Musical Director of The London Chorus, New London Children’s Choir and Highgate Choral Society. He is also Artistic Director of New London Orchestra and New London Children’s Choir, both of which he founded, respectively, in 1988 and 1991.
Among his extensive discography as a conductor are award-winning Hyperion discs of British Light Music Classics (1996 to 2002) with New London Orchestra and an acclaimed recording of Rutland Boughton’s opera, The Queen of Cornwall (2010).
Corp is well known as one of Britain’s most prolific choral composer-conductors, and in recent years has become an increasingly established composer of orchestral and chamber music. His compositions include four symphonies (four symphonies Symphony), two Piano Concertos and concertos for flute, recorder and cello.
Other works include The Wayfarer (In Homage to Mahler), which was given its world première at a Royal Festival Hall concert in July 2011, and This Sceptr’d Isle, also for choir and orchestra, which was given its première in a June 2012 Barbican concert with Highgate Choral Society, marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Releases on CD include The Songs of Ronald Corp sung by Mark Stone; Dhammapada, a setting of Buddhist texts for chamber choir; Things I Didn’t Say, a work in which a son deals with the death of his mother from Alzheimer’s disease; three String Quartets, a Clarinet Quintet (Crawhall), and a setting of The Yellow Wallpaper. His most recent works are Songs of the Elder Sisters and Lullaby for a Lost Soul. The latter three pieces have been choreographed by Chantry Dance Company as a triple bill – Corp de ballet.
Recent projects include The Pelican, an opera based on Strindberg’s play, and a song cycle for baritone and ensemble – Fields of the Fallen – settings of poems by German and British poets who died in the first world war (also now issued on CD).
Other commissions include Dover Beach for the BBC Singers, a setting of Dante for Gesualdo Six, An Essex Posy for the Chigwell Choir, Riddle Me This for the Frinton Festival, and Behold the Sea, commissioned by Highgate Choral Society and premiered by them at the Royal Festival Hall in March 2016. Among his latest work is Letters from Lony, a setting of letters written by a Jewish grandmother in Nazi controlled Amsterdam to her newly born grandson in England. This was premiered by Sarah Pring with the Chilingirian Quartet and pianist Andrew Brownell at the Proms at St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb in June 2017 and has subsequently been performed twice in Germany and also in Serbia (2022). His Symphony No3 was premiered in 2022 and his Symphony No4 and his song cycle for Roderick Williams will be performed this year, the latter as part of the Three Choirs Festival.
His experience and expertise in choral directing are crystallised in the textbook The Choral Singer’s Companion, which is now in its third edition.
He was awarded an OBE for services to music in the Queen’s 2012 New Year’s Honours. He has been made an Honorary Doctor of Music by Anglia Ruskin University and has received an Hon D Mus from University of Hull.
Among his extensive discography as a conductor are award-winning Hyperion discs of British Light Music Classics (1996 to 2002) with New London Orchestra and an acclaimed recording of Rutland Boughton’s opera, The Queen of Cornwall (2010).
Corp is well known as one of Britain’s most prolific choral composer-conductors, and in recent years has become an increasingly established composer of orchestral and chamber music. His compositions include four symphonies (four symphonies Symphony), two Piano Concertos and concertos for flute, recorder and cello.
Other works include The Wayfarer (In Homage to Mahler), which was given its world première at a Royal Festival Hall concert in July 2011, and This Sceptr’d Isle, also for choir and orchestra, which was given its première in a June 2012 Barbican concert with Highgate Choral Society, marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
Releases on CD include The Songs of Ronald Corp sung by Mark Stone; Dhammapada, a setting of Buddhist texts for chamber choir; Things I Didn’t Say, a work in which a son deals with the death of his mother from Alzheimer’s disease; three String Quartets, a Clarinet Quintet (Crawhall), and a setting of The Yellow Wallpaper. His most recent works are Songs of the Elder Sisters and Lullaby for a Lost Soul. The latter three pieces have been choreographed by Chantry Dance Company as a triple bill – Corp de ballet.
Recent projects include The Pelican, an opera based on Strindberg’s play, and a song cycle for baritone and ensemble – Fields of the Fallen – settings of poems by German and British poets who died in the first world war (also now issued on CD).
Other commissions include Dover Beach for the BBC Singers, a setting of Dante for Gesualdo Six, An Essex Posy for the Chigwell Choir, Riddle Me This for the Frinton Festival, and Behold the Sea, commissioned by Highgate Choral Society and premiered by them at the Royal Festival Hall in March 2016. Among his latest work is Letters from Lony, a setting of letters written by a Jewish grandmother in Nazi controlled Amsterdam to her newly born grandson in England. This was premiered by Sarah Pring with the Chilingirian Quartet and pianist Andrew Brownell at the Proms at St Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb in June 2017 and has subsequently been performed twice in Germany and also in Serbia (2022). His Symphony No3 was premiered in 2022 and his Symphony No4 and his song cycle for Roderick Williams will be performed this year, the latter as part of the Three Choirs Festival.
His experience and expertise in choral directing are crystallised in the textbook The Choral Singer’s Companion, which is now in its third edition.
He was awarded an OBE for services to music in the Queen’s 2012 New Year’s Honours. He has been made an Honorary Doctor of Music by Anglia Ruskin University and has received an Hon D Mus from University of Hull.
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Ronald Corp at 60
A Life in Music by Andrew Stewart (Jan 2011)
A Life in Music by Andrew Stewart (Jan 2011)
Living tradition matters to Ronald Corp. Its vital energy has long sustained the man’s generous output as a composer and passions as a performing musician. The unbroken connection of past to present is likewise central to his work as an Anglican priest, music director of two of London’s oldest symphonic choruses, and as all-round musical entrepreneur. His portfolio of job titles and multifaceted biography may represent a challenge to those who prefer to place musicians inside the limits of neatly defined boundaries and brand them with clear labels. And yet the record of his achievements bears witness to a career forged over the past four decades with singular determination and an abiding sense of purpose. Corp passed a personal milestone in early January, celebrating his sixtieth birthday four days in to the new year. He prefaced the date by reflecting on his development as an artist and the journey he has travelled since Somerset schooldays. When we meet in central London I jog his memory by suggesting that he helped pioneer the portfolio career, a common state of being among today’s classical performers but something still quite exotic when he elected to become a full-time freelance musician in 1988. While many of his contemporaries made their respective reputations for one or another musical activity, Ronald Corp became variously associated with composing, conducting and arranging, choir training, concert programming, writing books and broadcasting. In recent years the emphasis has increasingly fallen on composition, matched by the growing public appetite for his music. But variety remains the spice of his working life. “The tussle has always been to keep everything going. The fascinating thing is that I always wanted to be a composer. Composition has become the focal point; it’s the thing that has endured through all my years as a musician.” As the son of non-musical parents, Corp effectively taught himself to compose at the family’s upright piano. He later sought guidance from a family friend and amateur musician who proved unable to explain the practicalities of becoming a composer. “I assumed that composing would be my hobby,” he recalls, “but was always driven to do it.” Recent albums of Corp compositions, on Naxos, Dutton Epoch and Stone Records, include everything from his early song Break, break, break to world premiere recordings of his First Symphony and two string quartets. A new release, issued by Stone Records in the composer’s sixtieth birthday month, marks the discographic debut of Dhammapada, a setting for chamber choir of sayings attributed to the Buddha. Youthful industry delivered ‘several hundred’ pieces to the young composer’s credit before he went up to Oxford to read music in 1970. The Christ Church undergraduate decided it was better to destroy most of his pre-university creations than open his tally of student performances with pieces bearing unfeasibly high opus numbers. “I felt it was wise to start again,” he notes. The fully mature Corp catalogue dates from And All the Trumpets Sounded, a cantata written for Highgate Choral Society in 1989. “Composition wasn’t on the Oxford music agenda until my second year. And writing in a traditional idiom, as I did, was most definitely considered infra dig in those days.” After joining the BBC in 1973, Corp became librarian to the BBC Singers. The corporation’s music panel came close to accepting one of his song cycles for performance soon after his arrival at Broadcasting House. Many years and a revolution in establishment attitudes were to pass before his work received BBC airtime. The composer meanwhile honed his skills by writing scores and arranging pieces for the BBC’s staff choral society. He also gained invaluable practical experience as choirmaster of Highgate Choral Society and the London Chorus. Working with children, latterly with the New London Children’s Choir, enabled Corp to create a weighty collection of pieces for young voices. Above all, he learned how to write quality music for amateur musicians and useful lessons about the value of building lasting relationships with ensembles. The musician’s desire to discover new and neglected scores was both stoked and satisfied by his time with the BBC music library. His employers, however, showed little reciprocal interest in the music of R. Corp. “I knew it was worth persisting with my compositions,” he comments. “But I knew my work was not in line with the avant-garde style favoured by Radio 3. I’d already encountered rejection at school, where my headmaster fancied himself as a conductor. I showed him some of my pieces, which he dismissed as rubbish without justifying his opinion. I went away thinking, ‘Too bad – I know what I want to do’. I’ve held that view ever since.” Corp, determined to build a successful freelance career, left the BBC after almost 14 years in its service. He established the New London Orchestra in 1988 and swiftly secured its reputation with a series of intriguing programmes and groundbreaking recordings for the Hyperion label. “I was fully aware of the question ‘Why do we need another orchestra?’ If we were going to start yet another orchestra in London, I felt we had to look at music overlooked by other groups.” Grażyna Bacewicz, Rutland Boughton, Martinů, Milhaud, Poulenc, Prokofiev and Virgil Thomson stand among the beneficiaries of NLO attention. The ensemble’s repertoire list and discography are well furnished with works by composers who managed to innovate and advance tradition without joining the avant-garde club. Its credits also include formerly popular English operettas and oratorios from Victorian and Edwardian times, including the world première recording of Arthur Sullivan’s The Golden Legend, and a best-selling series of British, European and American light music albums for Hyperion. |
“My experience as conductor and programmer tells me that it’s wrong to dictate what audiences should like. It’s so important to present works you believe in and let the music speak for itself. I was determined that Martinů should be on the programme when we gave our first concert at the Stratford Rex as part of the New London Orchestra’s ongoing residency in the London Borough of Newham. The audience, which came from all backgrounds, clearly appreciated Martinů more than Mozart!” The experience of making music in the East End, Corp adds, has been enhanced by strong personal resonances and priceless memories of childhood. Although raised in rural Somerset, his maternal ancestors belonged to the harsher world of London’s docklands. His mother was injured during the Blitz and evacuated from her Millwall home to recover in Wells. “She met my father in Somerset and stayed there,” he recalls. “Coming to London, for family holidays and to visit mum’s parents on the Isle of Dogs, was always a thrill for me. I loved the energy of the docks and of East London and am delighted to be working there now with the New London Orchestra.” Corp family values apparently included dogged determination. The quality certainly influenced young Ron’s quest to learn about music and has propelled his adult journey as performer and composer. The lessons of childhood, he reflects, included potent examples of setbacks conquered and of education’s spiritual rewards. “There were very few books in our house, so I was not surrounded by great literature or learned volumes. During adolescence, I experienced a great hunger for learning. Perhaps it was then that I realised the need to grab whatever knowledge I could and simply keep on going.” Singing as sometimes the only tenor in a church choir supplied Corp with impressive sight-reading skills, introduced him to the Anglican liturgy, opened his heart to the Christian faith and set stable foundations for his eventual ordination. The presence and proximity of Wells Cathedral also stimulated his attraction to all things ecclesiastical. “I was born in No.1 Cathedral Green in Wells, a few steps inside Penniless Porch,” he recalls. “We lived in a flat at the top of the building where I remember hearing the cathedral bells and seeing the clergy walking across the green as a tiny boy.” Although the 18-year-old Corp considered training for holy orders, music supplied the stronger calling. “It sounds pious, but I’ve always considered music to be my ministry,” he observes. “I have certainly approached it that way, with zeal in wanting to share music with others.” Religion remained essentially a private matter until the late 1990s when Corp was asked to consider training for the priesthood. “I replied that I had to earn a living and that music allowed me to do that!” The Church of England, however, offered a best-of-both-worlds alternative, through which individuals received support to train for ordination while continuing in paid employment. “I didn’t tell a soul that I was training to be ordained. I used to arrive with my luggage direct from weekend courses at Salisbury to take Sunday afternoon rehearsals with the New London Children’s Choir hoping that nobody would ask where I’d been! I had to know that this was the right thing for me before telling people what I was doing.” Today, Ronald Corp neatly dovetails diary commitments as musician and composer with duties as assistant priest at the central London Church of St. Alban the Martyr. “Although I believe that music is my ministry, I never allow it to dominate when I’m working with musicians. When I perform one of Bach’s Passions, I experience different feelings to those I have when I’m performing a Martinů symphony. But I’m certainly not there to proselytise in the concert hall or at rehearsals.” For his sixtieth birthday concert with Highgate Choral Society, which takes place at the Royal Festival Hall on 9 July, Corp will conduct the world premiere of his The Wayfarer, a homage to Gustav Mahler for sixteen vocal soloists and orchestra. Dhammapada, meanwhile, is set to receive its first performance on 6 February at Village Underground, a multicultural, multi-arts venue in Shoreditch. How does the composer respond to those who question why a Christian minister was drawn to set a fundamental Buddhist text? The work, he says, was created to open dialogue among faiths. “It’s about inviting people to open their ears and minds to spirituality. These words, thought to be by the Buddha himself, tell us essential truths, which stand against cynical and untrusting ways of seeing the world and our place in it.” Dhammapada contemplates the corrupting force of material things and the transience of wealth, beauty and power. In conclusion Corp suggests that the art of making music belongs to a great collective tradition, through which individual performers and listeners are drawn together. “I know that classical music can be inclusive, that it can touch and move people of all beliefs and none, and celebrate feelings that unite rather than divide.” The musician points to the range of contemporary work that he has introduced to audiences in company with the New London Children’s Choir, which includes everything from scores by Luciano Berio and Peter Maxwell Davies to Diana Burrell and Gabriel Jackson. Likewise, the breadth of his New London Orchestra programming speaks of inclusion and openness to the new and the neglected. “I would love to present a Classic FM show and introduce a massive audience to all those great and fascinating pieces that struggled to compete with the ideology of the avant-garde. And, of course, I want to share my compositions with the greatest number of people.” © Andrew Stewart Jan 2011 |
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