Founded in 2013, Clifton International Festival of Music is Bristol's annual festival of world class classical music. Our mission is to bring you the best of music old and new, to inspire, enchant and delight you.
Tom Williams - Artistic Director
Tom Williams is a freelance choral conductor based in London. He is Director of Music at St Matthew’s, Kensington Olympia, where he heads up a newly established music foundation comprising several choirs. For seven years he was the Choral Director at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, and conducted the renowned choir and choral scholars in services, concerts and broadcasts, and on several international tours.
In 2012, Tom founded the award-winning chamber choir, The Erebus Ensemble, with whom he
has appeared on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Scala Radio, and in concerts across the UK and Europe. The group was Ensemble-in-Residence at the Bristol Proms (Bristol Old Vic Theatre)
and a prize winner at the inaugural London International Acappella Choir Competition at
St John’s Smith Square. It has performed at Buxton Opera House, Bridgewater Hall, Saffron Hall and at churches and cathedrals across the country. It has recorded two CDs on the Hoxa label.
Tom is well known for his work with amateur choirs and currently conducts Nailsea Choral Society and the West Barnes Singers. He gives frequent workshops and masterclasses, and is in much demand as a speaker on choral singing and conducting.
Peter Phillips - Festival Patron
Photo: Eric Richmond
Peter Phillips has dedicated his career to the research and performance of Renaissance polyphony, and to the perfecting of choral sound. Having won a scholarship to Oxford in 1972, he gained experience as an undergraduate in conducting small vocal ensembles, already experimenting with the rarer parts of the repertoire. He founded The Tallis Scholars in 1973, with whom he has now appeared in over 2,200 concerts and made over 60 discs, encouraging interest in polyphony all over the world. As a result of this commitment Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western classical music.
Peter Phillips also conducts other specialist ensembles. He is currently working with the BBC Singers, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Choeur de Chambre de Namur. He is patron of the choirs of Merton College (Oxford), Sansara (London), El Leon de Oro (Spain), and of the Festivals of Portsmouth and Clifton; he also hosts the annual Tallis Scholars Summer Course in Avila (Spain). In 2014 he launched the London International A Cappella Choir Competition in St John's Smith Square, attracting choirs from all over the world.
