Quattro Correnti Chamber Choir

Home / Events / Director / Contact Us

Our Director

Derek Harrison

Derek Harrison has been Musical Director of the QC Chamber Choir since its formation.  He has also been Musical Director of the Hertford Choral Society for just over twenty years.  During that time, he has enjoyed working on a wide range of repertoire and with a number of well-known orchestras, including the City of London Sinfonia, Milton Keynes City Orchestra and the London Mozart Players.

His own singing career started as a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, then with the Clerkes of Oxenford, later as a countertenor soloist with the St George’s Canzona (some of whose dozen or more recordings are still in the catalogue) and as a member of Musica Deo Sacra, and now as an oratoria soloist and member of several consorts.

At Oxford, he was Organ Scholar of St Edmund Hall, gained a Music Degree and Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists.  His first conducting appointment was to the Cumnor Choral Society during his time at Oxford.  Since then he has conducted many choirs from the large (800 for Britten’s War Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No 8 and, in November 2003, Verdi’s Requiem, all at the Royal Albert Hall) to the small – having been Music Director (and twice founder) of chamber choirs in Hertford, St Albans and Harlow.

Derek is now enjoying new strands to his musical career including examining, adjudicating, some teaching, leading choral workshops, voice coaching, accompanying and a recent appointment directing the music of a local church – which is requiring him to revive his organ playing!