Musical Director, Nicholas Carter
“Since 1978 my day job as a school Director of Music included the delights of rehearsing several upper voice choirs, so taking on the Micklegate Singers gives me the opportunity to conduct a mixed voice choir, something I had always wanted to do. Even after a long day at school the Thursday evening rehearsals are an enriching experience, as they continue to be. I am always impressed by the sheer variety of music that I can face the choir with and the standard that they reach in performance despite being amateurs. The composer William Byrd was a keen advocate of the health benefits of singing, and I always find that I leave the rehearsal feeling younger than I did at the beginning!”
Nicholas Carter has been our musical director for 20 years.
Nick was a chorister at Ripon Cathedral under Philip Marshall and then under the Micklegate Singers’ founder, Ronald Perrin. He is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music (London), having studied flute with Norman Knight and Gareth Morris. On his appointment as Director of Music at Queen Mary’s School, Baldersby Park, Topcliffe, he discovered the joys of choir training and in 1987 won the British Federation of Youth Choirs national conducting competition.
Nick is on the examining panel of the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music and since leaving Queen Mary’s in 2016 continues to compose, teach and perform. He took over the conductorship of the Micklegate Singers in 2000.