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Our Key People

Nick Austin - Music Director

Nick Austin is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied under Carola Grindea and Harold Dexter.

Nick has been Musical Director of Aylesbury Festival Choir since January 2017. Works performed include Mendelssohn’s Lauda Sion, Mozart’s Sparrow Mass and Rutter’s The Sprig of Thyme.

Nick has conducted Thames Voyces since January 2013. Works performed include Bach’s Jesu meine freude, Bruckner’s Mass in E minor, Durufle’s Requiem, Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Rutter’s Gloria and...

Rowena Gibbons - Accompanist

Rowena Gibbons studied oboe (principally) and piano at Chetham's School of Music, Manchester and since the age of 16 has played for choirs, instrumentalists, singers, ballet schools and church services.

Currently she is also accompanist to Lord Williams' Festival Chorus, Thame Choral Society, Towcester Choral Society and job shares as organist at St Dunstan's, Monks Risborough.

Yearly she organises a choral concert as part of the Ulverston International Music Festival in Cumbria and on her home turf teaches and plays for the vast majority of Associated Board and Trinity exams for Milton Keynes Music Service.
Piers Maxim - President

Piers became President of Aylesbury Festival Choir in 2004.

He is a former boy chorister at St Paul's Cathedral; following his Music degree at Cambridge University, he continued his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama London. He has composed choral and instrumental music since the age of 7 - a highlight was a commission for the Millennium eve service of celebration at Southwark Cathedral in the presence of HM Queen Elizabeth II.

As conductor, assistant and chorus master, he has worked regularly in the opera houses of Europe including the Staatsoper, Berlin, La Monnaie, Brussels and Le Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris. He made his USA debut conducting The Magic Flute ...
Read more about Piers...
The Committee

Chair (and webmaster):         Mike Elliott
Secretary:                           Lynda Phipps
Treasurer:                           Viv Bailleux
Membership Sec:                  Sheila Page
Music Librarian:                  Kate Atherton
Concert Manager:                Pat Aylett
Press & Publicity:                 Barbara Venables

...and read about some precious people who we have lost...