About Helen


Photo credit: Hugh Warwick/Christ Church Cathedral
Photo credit: Hugh Warwick/Christ Church Cathedral

Helen is a freelance conductor, workshop leader, pianist and organist and works regularly with a broad range of choirs across the UK.

 

Helen completed her MA at the Royal Academy of Music in Choral Conducting, studying with Patrick Russill. During her time at RAM she participated in masterclasses with groups including the BBC Singers, London Oratory Choir and Royal Academy of Music Chamber Choir, and co-founded the Voices of London Festival with a group of fellow young conductors from the course. Having graduated in July 2013 with the Alan Kirby Prize, she held the Junior Fellowship of the Joyful Company of Singers until 2014, conducting the group in venues across London including St John's Smith Square. In November 2016, she was awarded the Licentiate of the Royal Academy (LRAM), specialising in teaching choral conducting.

 

Helen grew up in East London, starting piano lessons aged five. Soon after she joined her first choir, and later won a music scholarship at Francis Holland School, Clarence Gate where she began accompanying and conducting and in her final year, organ lessons. Helen went on to study Music at Cambridge, winning an Organ Scholarship to Peterhouse where she conducted and accompanied the chapel choir in the College chapel, in numerous British cathedrals and on tour.

 

Helen has held positions with Highbury Youth Choir, Buckland and Betchworth Choral Society, and Highbury Opera Theatre. She is an Assistant Conductor with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and is Organist and Director of Music at St Mary Merton, SW19 where she trains the choir of boy and girl choristers. Helen is active as a freelance conductor, workshop leader, organist and accompanist across London and the south-east, and  is a founder member of the Voices of London Festival, a week-long festival of choral music held at St James' Sussex Gardens. In 2018 she won the Members’ Award from Action for Children’s Arts in recognition of her outreach work with young people. 

 

In 2019 she took up the post of Director of Frideswide Voices, the girls' choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.