Conductor - Christopher Herrick

Tonight is Christopher’s final concert with Twickenham Choral after 50 years.

He began his conducting career in the early 1960s while an organ scholar at Exeter College, Oxford, where he held the Parry/Wood Organ Scholarship. Here, he read for an Honours Degree in Music (MA), also assuming the role of Director of Music of the Chapel Choir and conducting the Exonian Singers and Orchestra. After Oxford, he secured a Boult Scholarship at the Royal College of Music, broadening his musical horizons to include the harpsichord and to study conducting with Sir Adrian Boult.

Christopher’s early career was at various Church of England establishments: from 1964 to 1967 he was Organist and Choirmaster at St Mary’s Primrose Hill in north London, before moving to St Paul’s Cathedral as assistant organist from 1967 to 1974.

In 1974 he moved from St Paul’s to Westminster Abbey, the same year that he auditioned for Twickenham Musical Society (see later). His Westminster Abbey days were marked by royal and state occasions, over 200 solo recitals on the Abbey organ, and the release of an album ‘Organ Fireworks’ in 1984 with Hyperion Records, which heralded his solo career as an international concert organist.

This new chapter saw Christopher touring the globe, recording extensively, notably the ‘Organ Fireworks’ and ‘Organ Dreams’ series as well as the complete organ works of Bach and Buxtehude for Hyperion. Since 1984, Christopher has dedicated himself to performance, recording nearly 50 CDs, as well as broadcasting for the BBC and many overseas radio stations – but always working round the Choir’s weekly rehearsals wherever possible. His solo organ performances are accessible on various platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Hyperion Records and YouTube.

Back to autumn 1974: after a rigorous series of interviews and an audition by the choir, Christopher took over as conductor of Twickenham Musical Society, as the choir was then called. For his first concert, the choir performed Gerald Finzi’s In Terra Pax and Haydn’s Nelson Mass. The secretary at the time wrote in her report to a committee meeting in January 1975: ‘the choir had given one concert under his baton and this had confirmed their confidence in Mr Herrick; it was hoped that he had no regrets about having accepted the job.’

Christopher’s half-century with the choir has been characterised by steady improvements coupled with judicious innovations, such as the policy of performing works in their original language. The choir has grown in size as well as in ability and reputation. For 22 of those years Christopher was musical director of both Twickenham Choral Society (as it had become) and Whitehall Choir, when several joint concerts were given – at Westminster Abbey, Guildford Cathedral and the Royal Albert Hall.

For a dozen years until the pandemic Christopher also directed the choir at the Brandenburg Spring and Autumn Choral Festivals at St Martin-in-the- Fields; and from the 1990s Christopher has led the choir on tour in Europe usually every two years.

The choir has performed works by living composers and often in the presence of the composer, for example Naji Hakim’s Gloria, Paul Spicer’s Easter Oratorio, Roxanna Panufnik’s Wild Musick, Robin Holloway’s The Spacious Firmament and On a Drop of Dew; and The Burning Heavens, An Old Belief and Jazz Cantata, all commissioned from Iain Farrington.

The choir is indebted to Christopher for his superb leadership and unwavering dedication to the choir.