THE OLD BARN ORCHESTRA
Conductor

Bryan Gipps was appointed our permanent conductor at the beginning of 2007. But he had already been associated with the Old Barn for some years. He led the orchestra for a concert in the early 1990s. He has sat in the front desk of violas for a number of concerts, and played the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with violist Sally Lees at a concert in Staplehurst in 2002. So Bryan is an experienced string player. He played in the National Youth orchestra and entered The Royal Academy of Music as a first study violinist. He has performed in such venues as The Royal Festival Hall and The Royal Albert Hall and led for the major orchestral and oratorio repertoire. He is the leader of the Beresford Ensemble, a well-known and highly respected chamber group working in the Southeast.

Bryan first conducted publicly at his preparatory school at the age of seven in 1960. As a Scholar at The King's School, Canterbury, he conducted a different work each week, and particularly came under the influence of Sir Malcolm Sargent. At The Royal Academy of Music he was twice awarded one of only four places on the Conductors' Course (on the second occasion Sir Simon Rattle joined the course as a fellow student), which enabled him to study under Maurice Miles.

Bryan then dedicated twenty-six years of his life to working in public schools, which included conducting choirs in most of the major English cathedrals, as well as recording for television, radio and C.D.. Conducting engagements at that time included working with such organisations as Braintree Opera, East London Polytechnic Orchestra, London Transport Choral Society and Ashford Symphony Orchestra.

Now, in addition to conducting the Old Barn Orchestra, he conducts Sutton Valence Choral Society, Cranbrook Operatic Society and is co-director of the Beresford Sinfonia. He is the Musical Director of the Egerton Music Festival, and recently stepped down from conducting Maidstone Youth Orchestra.

As an organist Bryan has given many recitals here and abroad, including the first London performance of Dr Arthur Wills' Organ concerto. At The Royal Academy of Music he was a student of Dr Douglas Hopkins (Organist Canterbury Cathedral 1952-55), and held the Sir John Goss Exhibition awarded to him by The Royal College of Organists. Bryan was a chorister at New College, Oxford, under Sir David Lumsden, and now sings regularly in Rochester Cathedral Choir.