Our Chairman

Our newly elected Chairman is Roger Boultbee.

I’ve always sung, and always enjoyed doing it. Right from kindergarten, ‘Music and Movement’ it was, then ‘Singing Together’ in primary school and the end of term concert. At secondary school there weren’t any formal music lessons. There was the school play at Christmas, and at Easter we performed an Oratorio, that was the beginning of my love for the sort of music Nantwich Choral Union sings. Somehow I got chosen for the solo parts: I was one of the trio of angels in ‘The Creation’!

Everyone learnt the recorder and there were the obligatory piano and violin lessons, then onto the saxophone with even less success. My interest turned technical, building my own Hi-Fi and then a synthesizer, inspired by the production of the Moog. And I’m a church bell ringer too and that provides a further form of music making.

But my taste has always been eclectic and taken me across the UK and round the world. I was a founder member of Hope in the Valley, a folk choir in Sussex, singing old English carols. Then onto Scotland, Dunfermline Choral Union (singing in the Carnegie Hall) before coming back to England and joining Nantwich. Jazz too: Stan Getz at the Birmingham Town Hall and more than once have I been to the Cape Town Jazz Festival. I joined a choir in Malawi, and recently a choir tour round Italy singing in the Basilicas and Duomos gave me the thrill of singing baroque music with organ accompaniment contemporary with the composer. Cathedrals of Great Britain feature too: from massed choirs at Wells, as part of the Bath and Wells Choir Festival, to Bangor and Peterborough, taking the place of the resident choir giving them a weekend off.

My family, my career as an Electrical Engineer, and now voluntary work, both overseas and at home, all vie for my attention, but I promise to put a focus on the Choral Society. I can offer a little musical knowledge, some expertise, a lot of experience and plenty of enthusiasm. I look forward to the next concert season working with John Naylor our exceptional Musical Director and Simon Russell our new Accompanist to bring an outstanding programme for our audiences. I know I have the whole committee and choir’s support to do just that.

Roger Boultbee

Chairman