Graham Jordan Ellis - Chester Music Society Choir Music Director
Graham Jordan Ellis has been associated with the musical life of Merseyside for many years and has achieved a considerable reputation as an experienced conductor of both choral and orchestral music, working with many choral and operatic societies, with amateur, youth and professional orchestras, including Das Schwäbische Symphonie-Orchester of West Germany, Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Northern Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1990 he founded the Liverpool Sinfonia, an orchestra of freelance professional players that appears with him regularly. Graham has also worked for BBC radio and television and is Director of Music at Birkenhead School, whose Chapel Choir has performed throughout this country and in France, Venice, Verona, Florence, Prague, Vienna and Northern Spain.
In 2000 he was commissioned to write the choral work Degrees of Joy for the centenary of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union and this received its premiere in the choir's Centenary Gala Concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under his direction. With this chorus and the RLPO, he subsequently conducted an acclaimed performance of Elgar The Kingdom.
His particular interest in English music is reflected in performances of Finzi Intimations of Immortality, Britten War Requiem, Elgar The Music Makers and Cello Concerto, Blackford Mirror of Perfection, and works by Leigh, Butterworth, Howells and others and a special performance of Elgar The Dream of Gerontius in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral with the Philharmonic Orchestra and a chorus of 300 voices to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the work's first performance.
Other notable performances have included Puccini Messa di Gloria, Verdi Aida, Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Bernstein West Side Story, Gershwin Porgy and Bess and Rhapsody in Blue with Martin Roscoe and the Northern Chamber Orchestra.
More recent concerts have included Bach St Matthew Passion and Mass in B minor, Verdi Requiem, a series of Gala Carol Concerts with actresses Patricia Routledge and Jean Boht, and the legendary Ken Dodd, in support of local and national charities, Finzi In terra pax, Cello Concerto, Orff Carmina Burana, Karl Jenkins The Armed Man and the rarely performed Janácek Glagolitic Mass with the Chester Music Society Choir in Chester Cathedral.
Graham has held the position of Music Director to the Chester Music Society since 1996, having been a guest conductor for their Golden Jubilee concert, performing Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony, Bax Tintangel and the North West premiere of Finzi Requiem da Camera.
