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Ronald Corp, an expert in working with children's choirs, is perhaps best known for his upper-voice music. He is the editor for a series of upper-voice publications for Oxford University Press, with whom he also has a number of his own works published. These include Four Elizabethan Lyrics, a commission for the Farnham Youth Choir enabled by the choir's success in the prestigious Sainsbury Choir of the Year competition, which was premièred at the 1994 Convention of the Association of British Choral Directors. Also published by OUP is the children's cantata, Cornucopia, premièred in 1997 by a number of choirs affiliated to the British Federation of Young Choirs (now youngchoirs.net), and scored for upper voices and orchestra. In 2002 he wrote a second cantata, Kaleidoscope.  For SA choir and 13 instruments, its gala première at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall was voted a huge success by both its young performers and audience. 

His first major mixed-voice choral work, And all the Trumpets Sounded, was premièred in 1989 by the Highgate Choral Society, and is published by Stainer and Bell.  His cantata, Laudamus, was premièred at St. John's, Smith Square in 1994 by the London Choral Society to great critical acclaim, and its third performance was given in 2000 in a Gala Concert in the Royal Festival Hall. A New Song followed in May 1999, and in 2001 his newest choral works attracted a lot of interest – Adonai Echad, with its mixing of texts from the Jewish and Christian faiths, and Mary's Song.  In 2000, Forward in Faith commissioned a new setting of the Mass for its Pentecost celebrations in June, at which massed voices gathered at the Greenwich Arena with the New London Orchestra and the composer as conductor, before a congregation of 10,000.  Christ our Future was later published, together with A New Song, by Oxford University Press. Yet more recently, a second Mass has appeared, the Missa San Marco, written for a cappella choir.  In 2003 this was performed during the Highgate Chorus' tour of Venice, in St Mark's Cathedral.  The première of his piano concerto was given by Julian Evans in a New London Orchestra concert in 1997 as part of its British Concertos series at St. John's, Smith Square.

Ronald Corp is Founder and Musical Director of the New London Children's Choir, Musical Director of the London Chorus and Highgate Choral Society, and Founder and Conductor of the New London Orchestra. He regularly leads singing days and other choral workshops for the UK's choral associations, including youngchoirs.net, the Association of British Choral Directors, and the Schools Music Association, and also for individual choirs. He has presented repertoire sessions at the World Choral Music Symposium, and has recently given workshops in the USA.

He began conducting full-time in 1988 when he founded the New London Orchestra. With the NLO he has appeared in all the main London venues and at major festivals around the UK. The NLO has a reputation for its innovative programmes, and Ronald Corp has breathed new life into a wealth of little-known music from the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, as well as commissioning many new works for the orchestra.

The New London Children's Choir is one of the busiest and most successful youth choirs in Britain. Launched in 1991 it has a special commitment to presenting new music, and has commissioned more than 20 new works from composers including Howard Skempton, David Horne, and Joseph Phibbs. Ronald Corp has conducted the choir in numerous concerts, recordings, and a television workshop as part of the Young Musician of the Year, and other engagements have included Krasa's opera Brundibar with the Mecklenburgh Opera for the BBC. The NLCC has appeared with all the major London orchestras, and in Paris, Assisi, and Seville, and has made recordings with Jansons, Ashkenazy, Rostropovich, Levine, and Sinopoli.

Corp's engagements as a guest conductor have included concerts with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels Radio and Television Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. He is regularly invited to work with the BBC Singers, often recording some of his own music for broadcast with them – the most recent was Dover Beach, a commission from the BBC for the Singers.  He is a frequent visitor to the BBC Promenade Concerts where in 2001 he conducted the New London Orchestra at the 'Junior Prom'. Proms performances in recent years with the New London Children's Choir include works by Alexander Goehr, Igor Stravinsky, and John Tavener.

An expert in choral training and repertory, Corp's comprehensive reference book entitled The Choral Singer's Companion has recently been published in a third edition by Thames/Elkin Publications.  It is an invaluable guide to singers and conductors for technique and repertoire information.

Future conducting engagements include concerts with the New London Orchestra, recordings for Hyperion, and guest appearances across Britain and in Europe. Soon to be broadcast is a recording that he made with the BBC Singers of the work that they commissioned from him in 2003, Dover Beach. Ronald Corp is currently working on ideas for another children's cantata and a Mass setting on English carol melodies.

To visit Ronald Corp's website, click here

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