Performance
David Wordsworth studied at Leeds University, the City University (London) and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. After a period of teaching he held senior positions at two major music publishers, Schott and OUP, developing close working relationships with a wide range of composers including Tippett, Henze, Ligeti, Penderecki , Dutilleux and more recently at OUP, working closely with John Rutter, Bob Chilcott, Gerald Barry, Michael Berkeley, Gabriel Jackson and Cecilia McDowall.
David became Music Director of the Addison Singers in 1995 and under his direction the choirs have expanded their regular London concert series, sung at major venues in Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, Krakow, Milan and have sung on tour in Cornwall, France, Ireland and at the Carnegie Hall (New York) under the baton of Bob Chilcott. In February 2011 David played a major role in the Percy Grainger Celebration held at King’s Place (London), both conducting the main choral concert and leading an afternoon wok-shop that attracted a capacity audience. New music is a regular feature of David’s concerts – he has conducted the first performances of works written especially for him and the Addison Singers by Gavin Bryars, Cecilia McDowall, Gabriel Jackson, Bob Chilcott, David Matthews, Edwin Roxburgh, Kenneth Hesketh, Howard Skempton and William Bolcom amongst many others. In January 2012 David lead almost 150 singers in a highly successful singing day focusing on Howard Goodall’s work ‘Eternal Light’ given in the presence of the composer and this was followed in March 2013 by a Singing Day featuring the music of Morten Lauridsen, accompanied by the composer himself at the piano.
In addition to work with the Addison Singers David Wordsworth was Musical Director of Horsley Choral Society in Surrey (2005-8), has conducted/adjudicated in Hungary, Norway, Mexico and Cuba and in 2007 visited the Philippines, conducting the Philippine Philharmonic in a concert of British music and teaching at the UST Conservatoire in Manila. He has appeared at festivals in many parts of the UK and spent the last three months of 2011 in the US, holding residencies at universities in New York, Michigan, North Carolina and Rhode Island, lecturing on aspects of British music and working with student choirs and conductors. In June 2012 David was Artistic Director of ‘John Ireland in Chelsea’ a major festival celebrating the music of the noted English composer and which featured David as both conductor and pianist, alongside major champions of British music such as the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Mark Bebbington. In February 2013 he was one of four conductors to lead the American composer Stephen Montague’s 70th birthday concert at St John’s Smith Square (London) and in November 2013 appeared with the Addison Singers and Voskresenije (St Petersburg) in music by Russian and English composers. In 2014 David conducted three performances at the Brandenburg Spring Choral Festival in London – another ‘Come & Sing’ with Howard Goodall , a concert of French music at St Martin-in-the-Fields and English and American music at St Clement Danes (London). In April/May he conducted a concert to celebrate the life Sir John Tavener, a major performance with the Addison Singers, the Vigila Singers and the Gavin Bryars Ensemble at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music, made a trip to Poland to take part in a choral music conference at the Frederick Chopin University and towards the end of the year a conducted performance of the Verdi Requiem.
David is Artistic Director of ‘Singing Shakespeare’, a major project supported by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and running through the next three years, focusing on choirs the world over singing new and existing settings of Shakespeare texts. David conducted choirs from Stratford-upon-Avon in the launch concert at Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon in April 2014 in a programme that included Vaughan Williams iconic ‘Serenade to Music’, as well as a newly commissioned work from Gary Carpenter and a new arrangement of Stephen Sondheim’s song ‘Fear no More’ that David has undertook with the permission of the composer. David lead a session on ‘Singing Shakespeare’ at the Association of British Choral Conductors convention in Cardiff in August 2014 and will conduct performances and workshops at a number of major choral festivals during 2015/16.
David’s most recent written publications include articles on American music, the music of Gavin Bryars, tributes to his friend Sir Richard Rodney Bennett and a two part survey of Polish Choral Music for ‘Choir & Organ’. His new arrangement for chorus, organ and strings of John Ireland’s anthem ‘Greater Love Hath No Man’ was premiered at the Ireland Festival in June 2012 and later published by Stainer & Bell and he has been ommissioned to compile and edit no fewer than three choral anthologies which will all will be published in the summer of 2015 – a collection of Christmas pieces by contemporary composers to be published by Cadenza Music, a contribution to the ‘Concerts for Choirs’ series published by Boosey & Hawkes, focusing on opera choruses by Benjamin Britten and a Shakespeare choral anthology to be published by Chester/Novello.
David Wordsworth has served as a Trustee for a number of musical foundations and at present is Music Advisor to both the John Ireland Trust and the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
