Who's Who at Ashford Invicta Singers

CHAIR: RICHARD FOULGER

Richard has been a member of the choir since its inception in 1991, he acted as master of ceremonies for a number of years and also as vice-chair. He took over as Chair in January 2017.

 

Richard admits he has no real musical background and that he has learned about singing four part harmony in the choir by listening to others and being encouraged by the friendly and supportive nature of Invicta Singers. He has also formed part of a Barbershop Quartet with three other choir members.

 

Richard retired from the London Borough of Bromley in 2010 where he was Assistant Director with responsibility for Community Safety and Public Protection. Since then he has committed time to volunteering with the Pilgrims Hospice in Ashford, playing golf (badly) and helping, with others, to ensure Ashford Invicta Singers continues to be guided by our aims of:-

  • expanding involvement in singing in the Ashford area by encouraging participation from all parts of the community,
  • raising money for charities and good causes,
  • making new friends, and
  • always having plenty of fun!

Previous Chairpersons:

2003 - 2017: Martin Bailey

2001: Phil Coles

1991: Rod Adams

MUSICAL DIRECTOR: BRYAN GIPPS

Bryan was appointed our Musical Director in April 2021. 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.

Previous Musical Directors:

2015 - 2020: Michael Fletcher

2013: David E. Hill

2013: Michael Foad

2013: Allan Clay

1993: Charlotte Coles

1991: Bill Stevens

ACCOMPANIST: KEVIN BULL, BA (Hons), Dip. Mus. A.L.C.M. 

Kevin, the Invicta choir’s talented accompanist writes that:

 “I started piano lessons at the age of 8 – my first piano being a plank of wood, on which I marked out with keys.  It was rather crude and would only play diatonically (and silently) but it got me started.  (It was marginally better than some pianos that I have played subsequently, which would have benefitted enormously from a silent option!)  After a couple of weeks of practising in the back garden, my parents bought me a piano and I started my musical life.

 

I took up the violin about a year later, but by the age of 16 I had put it down again and the musical world remained blissfully unaware of either.  In between I played in the school orchestra – at one time I shared a desk with a contemporary who prepared to play by rubbing soap on his bow – again, the musical world was spared another unhappy concatenation of catgut and horsehair!

 

Away from the fiddle I occasionally played piano works with the redoubtable school orchestra – Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” among them. After leaving school and starting work I re-commenced my piano lessons with Mr Anthony Calladine of Hastings, who got me through an A.L.C.M. diploma in piano playing.

 

I took up the role of choirmaster at All Saints Church, Lydd, in the early 1980s and we had quite a large membership at that time as we had a pretty active youth section which helped to keep up the membership in the trebles.

 

In 1995 after being made redundant from Prudential Insurance I took up freelance music teaching in a number of Folkestone Primary schools.  A few years later, I set up a musical production company with my wife.  I also worked as a ballet pianist at a local independent school.

 

More recently, I have been doing more accompanying and as well as working with Invicta Singers I have played for the Shorncliffe Military Wives Choir and the Agape Gospel Choir (as well as being pianist in the Agape Jazz Band) which has broadened my musical experience. I continue to teach piano and regularly submit pupils (both old and young) for examinations.  I think of my piano as a life-support machine.  The piano is my forte – so if you want to try and make it yours, I always have room for one more pupil!”

Previous Accompanists:

2012: Gillian Lines

1993: Duncan Finn

1991: Charlotte Coles