Bryan Gipps was appointed our Musical Director in April this year. He is well known locally as a conductor and performer and is a multi-disciplined professional musician. He has established a fine reputation as Conductor of Sutton Valence Choral Society over the last eighteen years, including a sold out performances of Verdi's Requiem in Canterbury Cathedral and Beethoven's Choral Symphony in Rochester cathedral. For a number of years he conducted Maidstone Youth Orchestra and Cranbrook Operatic Society's productions. He is co-director of the Beresford Sinfonia. Whilst a Scholar at The King's School, Canterbury, he conducted a different work each week, and particularly came under the influence of Sir Malcolm Sargent. At The Royal Academy of Music he was twice awarded one of only four places on the Conductors' Course, which enabled him to study under Maurice Miles.

Bryan dedicated twenty-six years of his life to working in independent schools, eighteen as a Director of Music, which included conducting choirs in most of the major English cathedrals, as well as on disc, radio and television. Bryan is also a violinist, organist and singer. As a violinist he has performed in such venues as The Royal Festival Hall and The Royal Albert Hall and led for the major orchestral, musical and oratorio repertoire. As an organist he was awarded the Sir John Goss Exhibition by The Royal College of Organists, which enabled him to study under Dr Douglas Hopkins for four years. Bryan has given many recitals here and abroad, including the first London performance of Dr Arthur Wills' Organ Concerto. In the last two years he has played for services in Canterbury, Lincoln, Gloucester, Exeter and Salisbury Cathedrals, but he is normally to be found playing for services in St Mary's Church, Ashford, where he is Director of Music. Bryan was a chorister at New College, Oxford, under Sir David Lumsden. Whilst in London he sometimes deputised as a bass in the Chapel Royal Choir, St James' Palace and is now a Deputy Lay Clerk at Rochester Cathedral, with which choir he has toured to Germany and Holland as well as broadcast on BBC radio and television.

Past Musical Directors:

2015: Michael Fletcher

2013: David E. Hill

2013: Michael Foad

2013: Allan Clay

1993: Charlotte Coles

1991: Bill Stevens