Cardiff University Collegium

The School of Music is pleased to announce the renaming of its Baroque Ensemble (the core of which comprises soprano and alto voices with orchestral strings and woodwind) as Cardiff University Collegium.

The ensemble will continue under the directorship of Dr Peter Leech, with the same core resources. Its change of name allows for an increase in the diversity and range of its concert repertoire, which will extend from eighteenth-century choral and instrumental ensemble works through to twenty-first-century items by living composers.

Auditions are held each year for Collegium. Non-music students are very welcome, although the majority of musicians are drawn from the School of Music. For more information get in touch with Elin Jones.

Ensemble Leader - Peter Leech

Peter Leech began his musical career in Australia as a treble chorister and later worked as a professional conductor in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney, before moving to the UK in 1996 to undertake a PhD in Musicology with Dr. Peter Holman MBE.

In 2003 Peter won First Prize at the Mariele Ventre International Competition for Choral Conductors (Bologna), since which time he has developed a reputation in the UK and aboard for fresh, innovative and dynamic interpretations of a wide variety of choral repertoire, ranging from early polyphony to contemporary music. The list of vocal ensembles he has directed includes The Song Company (Sydney), Coro Euridice (Bologna), the City of Oxford Choir, the Cathedral Singers of Christ Church Oxford, the Bristol Bach Choir, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus, Collegium Singers, Harmonia Sacra and Cappella Fede. With The Song Company and Harmonia Sacra Peter has recorded CDs for Tall Poppies and Nimbus Alliance, and has also appeared as an ensemble vocalist on the Hyperion label.

Trained initially as an orchestral conductor (after studies in violin and keyboard) Peter has also collaborated with many leading UK period instrument ensembles including Canzona and Frideswide Ensemble. After several years as a professional singer in London, Peter has been based in North Somerset since 2009. He was appointed to an Associate Lectureship in the School of Music at Cardiff University in 2015.