History of the Choir
About the Music Director
Members Overview


About Us
About the Music Director


ROGER WILLS G.R.S.M., A.R.C.M.
MUSICAL DIRECTOR -
HOLMAN-CLIMAX
MALE VOICE CHOIR
 


A Cornishman, Roger began music lessons at the age of seven, learning to play the piano and cornet. He subsequently played French horn in the Penzance Symphony Orchestra and the Cornwall County Symphony Orchestra. He was the solo tenor horn player with Cornwall Youth Brass, as well as singing with the St. Meriadoc singers - a mixed vocal group that specialised in madrigals and motets.

In 1966 he was accepted for a degree course, which he followed for three years at the Royal College of Music, London, studying with Eileen Reynolds and Edwin Bembow ( Piano) Mark Raphael (Singing) Denys Darlow and Nicholas Danby before undertaking a post-graduate course in Music Education at London University.

On his return to Cornwall he first taught Music in Camborne and then at Redruth Community School.  In 2004 he retired from teaching after 34 years.

He has taken an active part in many varied forms of musical activity, directing amateur operatic society productions, a madrigal choir and as a trombone player in orchestral and choral society concerts.
Roger joined the Choir as an accompanist in 1988 and was appointed its Musical Director in August 1991.

In 2000, Roger became the resident conductor for the Cornwall Federation of Male Voice choirs - rehearsing the seven hundred choir members over several months in various venues around Cornwall for the concert that took place in the Royal Albert Hall, London.
At that concert the choir sang an arrangement of "Love Divine" which he has written and which he conducted - accompanied by St. Keverne Youth Band.
For his services to music in Cornwall Roger was made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd in 2001 - his Bardic name - "Dyskajor a Gan " (Teacher of Songs).
In 2006, Roger was made an Honorary Life Member of the Cornwall Federation of Male Voice Choirs in recognition of all his hard work.

He has built up the choir into a complement of eighty members and has continued its long tradition as one of the foremost choirs in the British Isles and has composed and arranged many songs for their concerts and recordings.

Roger has been married to Cheryl for over thirty years and they have two children and two grandsons.

Read more about Roger on his own website:  

http://mysite.freeserve.com/dyskajor/index.jhtml

 

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