HILARY CAMPBELL
Musical Director
Hilary Campbell is a freelance choral specialist. As well as being Musical Director of West London Chamber Choir, she is also founder and director of professional chamber choir Blossom Street, and MD of Bristol Choral Society and Chiswick. She is also conductor of several office choirs, including P&O Ferries, the group which won the recent BBC2 series The Choir, and whom she met whilst filming for the series. Her guest work includes ensembles such as the BBC Symphony Chorus (whom she prepared for a Prom featuring Mozart’s Mass in C Minor) and BBC Radio 4’s Daily Service Singers. She also runs an annual project with Judith Weir at the Royal Academy of Music, in conjunction with Blossom Street and the RAM composition department. In 2017, she looks forward to chorus mastering the combined forces of the Royal Academy of Music singing department in a performance of Mahler Symphony No. 2 at Royal Festival Hall conducted by Semyon Bychkov.
Hilary gained a Distinction for an MMus in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Patrick Russill, where as part of her course she worked with professional choirs including the BBC Singers and Cardinall’s Musick; she was also awarded the three choral conducting prizes. She gained a Distinction for an MA in Vocal Studies at the University of York, and undertook an Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in singing at Trinity College of Music. Following her studies, she returned to the Royal Academy as the Meaker Fellow 2012-13, the first choral conductor to have been thus honoured. In addition to her regular conducting work, Hilary also acts as an adjudicator, choral workshop leader and guest conductor. She is a founder member of the Voices of London Festival, and is also a published and prize-winning composer. With Blossom Street, she has released two award-winning Naxos recordings.
KRYSTAL TUNNICLIFFE
Accompanist
Australian pianist Krystal Tunnicliffe works in both the Senior and Junior departments of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and is a Britten-Pears Young Artist. With duo partner Siân Dicker, she won the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform 2020, and together they performed at the Oxford Lieder Festival in October 2020 and February 2021, and opened St John’s Smith Square’s 2020 Autumn Season. In 2021 they also gave recitals at the LIFE Victoria Festival (Barcelona), and the International Lied Festival (Zeist), as well as all across the UK., and they are looking forward to recitals as part of the Aldeburgh and Ryedale Festivals in 2022. In 2019, she won the prize for the best accompanist in the heats at Melbourne National Liederfest, and with Harriet Burns she was a finalist at the Maureen Lehane Awards.
Krystal completed Bachelor and Masters degrees (with distinction) from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and the Guildhall School respectively, before undertaking a Junior Fellowship at the Guildhall School. She is also a graduate of the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien.
Krystal’s recent engagements include performances in London, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, Belgium and France (Notre Dame de Paris, Disneyland Paris, La Madeleine), including recitals at Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St-Martin-in-the-Fields, and LSO St Luke’s. In the summer of 2021, she was the pianist for Waterperry Opera’s staged song cycles, Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel, and Vaughan William’s On Wenlock Edge. In 2018 she performed Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles as a part of the BBC Total Immersion Day, later broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She was the concerto soloist for Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto for the Chorus of Dissent. In 2019/2020, she was the repetiteur/orchestral pianist for NI Opera/Lyric Theatre Belfast’s Sweeney Todd, and Kiss Me Kate. She has been a staff pianist at Arts Educational Schools, Guildford School of Acting, Millennium Performing Arts, the Victorian College of the Arts and Opera Scholars Australia.
Krystal is also passionate about music education and outreach, and she is the Principal Accompanist and Piano Teacher at Surbiton High School, where she also works across both the Boys’ and Girls’ Prep Schools. She was a Wigmore Hall Chamber Tots Artist 2017-18, and has worked on education workshops for Glyndebourne Education Department, the Royal Academy of Music, the London Bach Choir, the Prison Choir Project, and Kingston Music Service. She is the accompanist for the award-winning Bromley Boy Singers, is the staff pianist for the BAY Choral Courses, and in Australia has worked with the Gondwana Voices.