Conductor - Malcolm Hicks
Malcolm Hicks read for music degrees at Birmingham University and was Assistant Master of the Music at Birmingham Cathedral while a student, at the same time taking prizes in the professional diploma exams of the Royal College of Organists.
After further studies in piano, cello, singing and conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama he has since enjoyed a full-time freelance career as keyboard player, chorus-master and conductor, based in London, performing in South Bank concerts, Proms, radio and TV, films, recordings, and on tour abroad, countless times in Europe, several times to the far East, and to North and South America and the former USSR. He particularly enjoyed a long association as regular Organist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
For five decades and more he worked as a chorus-master with the London Philharmonic Choir, the Royal Choral Society, London Symphony Chorus, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the BBC Singers and many other groups. This activity brought with it the inspiring privilege of collaborating with and learning from the most illustrious of international conductors, composers and soloists - far too many to list here - from the 1960s to the present day.
Outside of London work, he conducted a long series of choral and orchestral concerts in Hertfordshire, and then over a hundred concerts, some foreign tours and three CDs with the Waverley Singers, based in Farnham, for twenty-six years. Having now retired from his work in London and abroad, he still continues to enjoy conducting and playing good music with choirs and orchestras, mostly more locally, but with some cherished long-term associations still continuing from as far back as the 1960s. Surrey Voices was formed in 2008.
Since childhood Malcolm has always been a church (and synagogue) musician, and these days he is very happy to work as Organist, alongside dedicated colleagues who provide the music for the worship at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Andrew in Aldershot, the Catholic Cathedral for the Bishopric of the Forces.
