Other choir news!

• Choir rehearsals are now underway for the May performance of Haydn's Creation. Subs are now due!

• Our new Musical Director is Alistair MacKenzie

Alistair was born in 1960; his first appointment was that of organist and choirmaster of a local church at the age of 14. He is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music where he studied organ, piano, harpsichord and choral conducting.

He has studied with Dr. Francis Jackson OBE and Dame Gilliam Weir for whom he has also performed in master classes. His post-graduate study was at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music where he was awarded a major scholarship in organ studies and became Sub-Organist at Glasgow Cathedral. He has been Director of Music at independent schools across the UK and is currently Director of Music at Bolton School, Girls' Division and Organist at St Annes Parish Church, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire.

His concert and recital appearances include those at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Clifton, Bristol, Liverpool, Chester, Wells, Truro and Blackburn Cathedrals, York Minster, Tewkesbury Abbey, The Free Trade and Bridgewater Halls, Manchester, St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Salford and Oxford Universities and St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, He has given a number of festival performances for North West Arts and the Buxton and Edinburgh Festivals. He has performed with the Manchester Boys` Choir, the Phoenix Brass Ensemble, with celebrated performers and conductors including Sir Philip Ledger, Simon Lindley, Acker Bilk, Nigel Ogden and Paul Potts.

He has accompanied and directed choral groups throughout Great Britain and has conducted choirs in Paris, Chartrês, Münster, Vienna and the Czech Republic. Alistair has directed courses for the Royal School of Church Music and performed before His Eminence the late Cardinal Basil Hume, HRH the late Princess Margaret and for The Royal Variety Club of Great Britain. His radio broadcasts include a nine-month series of  ‘The Lives of the Great Composers’ and his direction of the Radio Bristol ‘Returners’ Orchestra’ (which he founded for the BBC’s centenary ‘Music Live’ initiative) won the top national radio prize for The Queen’s Jubilee celebrations of 2002. His recordings and broadcasts include those for BBC Radios 3 & 4, Lancashire and Bristol, Granada, Yorkshire and BBC Television.

He is married to Lisa, his wife of 28 years, and has seven delightful children.