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Biographies

Exultate Singers - 323 words

Exultate Singers was founded to sing Sunday Worship on BBC Radio 4 for a live broadcast in September 2002. It has gone on to give over 100 concerts, broadcasts and other appearances in churches, cathedrals and concert halls in the South West, Wales and London. In October 2009 the choir travelled to Poland and the Czech Republic, giving concerts in Krakow and Prague. In 2007 the choir toured Germany, singing in Bach's Church in Leipzig and in Berlin, Potsdam and Brandenburg. The choir has given several broadcasts on BBC Radio including a broadcast of Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert live on Radio 4 from St Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

Exultate Singers' debut CD, Visions of Peace, was released in 2005 and featured on BBC Radio 3's The Choir. In 2008 John Rutter produced and recorded the choir's second CD, A Time For Singing. The choir recently recorded its third CD, All Shall Be Well, to be released on the Naxos label on 1st May 2012.

With a repertoire of over 300 separate pieces - ranging from two-minute anthems to whole works such as Bach's St Matthew Passion and Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert - the choir has sung music from plainsong and Renaissance masterpieces to contemporary music, jazz and spirituals in an array of different languages including Czech, Polish, Russian, Latin, Aztec, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Quechua, Tagalog, Welsh and Icelandic.

Exultate Singers is active in commissioning new works. It commissioned Philip Moore to write a double choir anthem for its fifth birthday, and in November 2009 premiered All Shall Be Well, a commission by Roxanna Panufnik, marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2012 the choir has co-commissioned a setting of the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis that it has commissioned from Roxanna Panufnik. Exultate Singers will give the UK premiere of the work at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music on Saturday 19th May at St Pancras Church, London. www.exultatesingers.org

David Ogden (conductor) - 306 words

David Ogden is a professional conductor and composer. He conducts Exultate Singers, City of Bristol Choir, the Royal School of Church Music's Millennium Youth Choir, and in his post of Head of the Bristol Choral Centre, he conducts the Bristol Schools Chamber Choirs.

David has conducted numerous concerts of all kinds of music, from jazz and songs from the shows to first performances by contemporary composers, along with an extensive repertoire of songs, anthems and over 100 large-scale choral works.

For over 20 years he has worked with numerous professional and amateur groups of all shapes and sizes in many fields of music making, including concerts, musical theatre and opera, community projects, primary and secondary level educational workshops, from small children's groups to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In the UK, he works extensively with the Royal School of Church Music, and with the BBC, conducting choirs on BBC Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the World Service, and working as conductor, arranger and music adviser on BBC TV's Songs of Praise.

His compositions are published by the RSCM and White Light Publishing, and are performed in schools and churches worldwide. His music is broadcast frequently on BBC radio and television. In April 2008 one of his anthems was performed by a 250-strong choir in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI as part of a Papal Mass in the Washington Nationals Baseball Stadium in Washington DC with a congregation of 40,000 people in attendance. In April 2009 he travelled to Assisi to conduct the RSCM Millennium Youth Choir in a week-long choral pilgrimage for the BBC, marking the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Order of St Francis. In 2004 David was made an Associate of the Royal School of Church Music in recognition of his services to church music. www.davidogden.co.uk

Richard Johnson (accompanist) - 158 words

Richard Johnson combines a professional career as a patent attorney with a busy schedule of musical activities. This double life began at Oxford University, where he simultaneously held an academic scholarship in physics with the organ scholarship at Oriel College. After leaving Oxford, Richard worked for a time in London, where he was Organist & Choirmaster at a church in Covent Garden. In 2004 he moved to Bristol and quickly became involved in the city's music scene as an active church organist, a member of Exultate Singers, and Accompanist to the City of Bristol Choir.

Accompanying acts of worship and secular concerts makes up the majority of Richard's musical output. He has played for services at many of the UK's cathedrals, including St Paul's, Salisbury, Wells and Winchester, and has featured on BBC Radio 3's Choral Evensong with the RSCM Millennium Youth Choir and BBC television's Songs of Praise with the City of Bristol Choir and Exultate Singers.