Hart Voices
Amateur SATB choir
based in Fleet, Hampshire
Musical Director - Roy Rashbrook
“If I cannot fly, let me sing.” Stephen Sondheim
Roy Rashbrook was educated at Dauntsey’s School, going on to study Music at Goldsmith’s College and Singing under Rudolf Piernay at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.
After a brief but rewarding flirtation with a career in classroom teaching, Roy became a professional singer in 1998, joining the world-famous choir of Saint Paul’s Cathedral the following year; a position which offers some precious stability in the life of a freelance musician!
In addition to the broadcasts, concerts, special events and daily services there, Roy has also sung with groups such as The BBC Singers, The King’s Consort, Tenebrae, The Clerks Group, Ex Audi and Ex Cathedra, combining their various performing, touring and recording schedules with his work as a soloist, singing teacher and conductor.
He has conducted several choirs and ensembles, including the Goldsmiths’ Chorus, The University of London Union Chorus, The Hanover Singers, The Chantry Singers (Guildford, Surrey), and Candlelight Opera. He is currently Musical Director of Hart Voices (Fleet, Hampshire) and is a regular guest conductor of Waverley Singers (Farnham, Surrey).
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Roy has performed as a soloist with a number of Britain’s leading orchestras including the City of London Sinfonia, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the London Mozart Players. In addition to performances in all London’s best-known concert venues, his work has taken him all over the country and throughout Europe as well as the U.S. He has appeared on many CD recordings, film soundtracks and radio and television broadcasts, both at home and abroad.
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During lockdown, he focused his attention on providing good quality content for his amateur choirs, composing, producing, and arranging multi-tracked, remote recordings and videos of new music, some of which achieved national radio and television airplay.
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Roy is also in growing demand as an arranger and composer. Recent projects include his composition (in collaboration with Librettist Euan Tait) of a new cantata - Song Rushes In, which received its premiere in November 2022 and was described by the music critic Malcolm Hicks as “Beautifully crafted . . . A kaleidoscope of fluent musical invention.” Further performances of his compositions have recently taken place in Guildford, Windsor, London and New York. He is currently working on a commission for Southampton University Symphony Orchestra whilst an album of his choral arrangements is currently being produced by the award-winning folk duo Ninebarrow.
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His daughter Lili is a choral scholar in her fourth year at Lancing College, whilst Roy lives with his wife, Polla, in Surrey, where he spends such spare time as he can find with his hobbies of (very gentle) kayaking, country walks, resisting the purchase of an old VW Beetle and nurturing his increasingly irrational and obsessive enthusiasm for old vinyl LPs.
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