JOHN NIGHTINGALE
JOHN NIGHTINGALE's first experiences of public music-making date from his schooldays in St. Dunstan's College, Catford, where he sang alto in the choir and often appeared as a piano soloist in school concerts. He went on to further his studies with the late Geoffrey Connah, concentrating on keyboard accompaniment, in which he later qualified at the Royal Academy of Music. John was appointed accompanist to the Beckenham Chorale and the Beckenham (now Bromley) Summer Choral Festival, two posts which he still holds. At the same time he began to work as a recital pianist for solo singers and instrumentalists, an activity he greatly enjoys and which he has continued until the present day.
In 2001 he renewed a collaboration with the Hammig String Quartet which began in 1998 with Vaughan Williams's On Wenlock Edge and has led to several recent performances of the Brahms Piano Quintet. He has also accompanied at summer schools, masterclasses and international music competitions and has often appeared as a piano and harpsichord concerto soloist, both locally and on the South Bank.
Since 1990 John has been active solely in musical performance – as conductor, chorus-master and accompanist – combined with editorial and consultative roles; the latter have included an extended period of involvement in the production of a thematic catalogue of the works of the French baroque composer Michel-Richard de Lalande, which is due for publication shortly, and assistance with the preparation of new editions of music by Lalande and others.
Prior to 1990 his work over many years as a member of BBC Radio 3's planning team had already fostered his interest in a wide spectrum of music. He was appointed Director of the South London Singers in 1988 and since then he has conducted them in some fifty concerts of works representing every period from the fifteenth century to the late twentieth, as well as several selections of Christmas carols. He has long recognised that alongside the staple fare of the choral repertory much other worthwhile music has suffered undue neglect. Hence, his programmes have often featured rarities, among them only the second modern performance of Samuel Wesley's Ode to St. Cecilia and the first of Lalande's Laudate pueri, the first London performance of Joseph Jongen's Mass and the first performance in the UK of Healey Willan's Requiem. He has also directed the première of First Light, commissioned by the South London Singers from the composer Nicholas Ansdell-Evans, and the second performances of Ansdell-Evans's A Time of Healing and Millennium Mass. In all, he has directed the performance of a wealth of music both familiar and unfamiliar, totalling almost 200 separate items, by over eighty composers from Dunstable to Rutter, as he continues to seek an equally fair hearing for the unknown as for the known.