Simon Lesley

Musical Director 2007 - 2023

Jul 07, 2023

Simon Lesley was our much admired and highly talented Musical Director from 2007 to 2023. He extended the choir's repertoire from Classical oratorio to more modern pieces as can be seen from the list of past concerts and from listening to some of our performances on https://www.youtube.com/@rollestonchoralsociety8594/featured

Simon is a published composer-arranger and accomplished conductor and performer, with long-standing connections with Birmingham Conservatoire. As a boy he received a Dean’s Chorister award from Chichester Cathedral, which started his relationship with choral music. Contrastingly, in 1997 he won the British Trombone Society Composition Competition, and has improvised his way through the London and Cheltenham jazz festivals. In 2009 he won the Conservatoire’s John Mayer prize for multicultural composition. He has completed a PhD in contemporary composition for bass guitar, and teaches commercial music in central Birmingham. His arrangement for the Swingle Singers of The Beatles’ Drive My Car has been performed at least 200 times worldwide.

He has worked with Siân Edwards, Edwin Roxburgh, Peter Wiegold, the Swingle Singers and championship brass band, The Staffordshire Band. His works are published by Universal Edition, Chester Music, Warwick Music, Kirklees Music, Kevin Mayhew, Studio Music and Faber Music and have been performed at the Barbican, Millennium Dome, Symphony Hall and around the world.