Meet our team
peter elliS, Music director
Peter Ellis is a native of Halifax, UK and read Music at the University of Birmingham, studying violin, organ and conducting. He was Music Director of the Birmingham University Chamber Choir and also a member of the renowned City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, performing at the BBC Proms, on BBC Radio and Channel 4 television and on the Gramophone award winning EMI recording of Syzmanowski’s King Roger.
Peter qualified in Music Education from the University of London Institute of Education in 2000 and relocated to Australia in 2002. Peter has held a number of artistic positions including Music and Artistic Director of both the Newcastle University Choir and Eastern Sydney Chamber Orchestra and Music Director for Tenor Australis. He has made regular guest conducting appearances for a number of leading vocal ensembles including Coro Innominata, Macquarie University Singers and the Choirs of Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle and St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney. Peter also enjoyed four years as pianist for the David Jones Christmas Choir. In addition, as a participant in the Symphony Australia conductor development program, Peter conducted the Tasmanian, Adelaide and Queensland Orchestras.
Always heavily involved in church music, Peter was Assistant Organist/Director of Music at Sydney’s St. James’, King Street from 2005-2009. He directed a number of orchestral masses and also recorded and broadcast with the choir and Australian Baroque Brass. He was latterly Director of Music at St. Luke’s, Mosman from 2009 to 2015. Peter continues to make appearances as organist and harpsichord continuo player.
Peter has been Director of Choral Programs at Sydney’s Barker College since 2012. As well as direction of one of Australia’s largest school choral programs, Peter is conductor of the college’s renowned Chamber Choir. With Barker’s choirs, he has performed in Boston, New York, Washington DC, Istanbul, Cannakale and Gallipoli, as well as giving the first performance outside the USA as well as the Boston and New York premieres of Eric Whitacre’s choral version of Goodnight Moon. 2017 Tour appearances saw concerts in Edinburgh, York, London, Cambridge, Villers-Bretonneux and Paris. Peter also directs a number of junior and alumni ensembles and teaches both middle and senior school classroom music. He is fanatically committed to music education and community outreach.
In August 2015 Peter became Music Director of Willoughby Symphony Choir. He has since conducted recordings, prepared them for performances of Beethoven Choral Symphony, Poulenc’s Gloria, Christmas, Opera Gala and Promenade concerts as well as conducting performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Faure’s Requiem, Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem and Handel’s Messiah with the WSC and WSO. In 2018 Peter conducted the WSO and WSC in a program of Vaughan Williams choral works as part of the WSO subscription series. Peter was also privileged to conduct the first Australian performance of the Paul Mccreesh translation of Haydn’s The Seasons with WSO/WSC in 2018.
In recent years, Peter has made a number of appearances with the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra, including the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Kids Proms and several collaborations between the KPO and WSC, with Stravinsky’s Pulcinella/Rossini’s Stabat Mater in 2017 and Debussy’s La Mer/Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky in 2018. Other 2018 highlights included a debut with English Masters, directing Queensland Baroque from the harpsichord.
In 2019, Peter conducted WSC/WSO in a rare performance of Eugene Goossens’ 1959 reorchestration of Messiah, several performances of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in collaboration with the Eastern Sydney Chamber Orchestra and two concerts of English Choral Classics in Sydney and Bathurst.
Wendy Lindgren OAM, President
The choir is managed by an elected Committee and Wendy Lindgren OAM has been the President since 2008. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her extensive voluntary services in a range of areas including the choir, the Women’s Electoral Lobby and children’s services.