User:Ajhenderson

Andrew J Henderson took up his position as choral scholar at Portsmouth Cathedral in September 2005, having previously held a choral scholarship at St. John’s College, Oxford, from where he graduated in Music. He combined his choral scholarship with the post of Choirmaster at the Wesley Memorial Methodist Church.

Whilst in Oxford, he was much in demand as an accompanist for groups’ rehearsals as well as soloists, and sang in Schola Cantorum of Oxford and Magdala. He now sings with the Portsmouth University Choir and Chamber Singers under George Burrows and with Cantores Sanctæ Insolitæ Artis under Michael Stoddart.

His musical experience ranges from his first appointment, at the age of 16, as Assistant Musical Director of Southey Amateur Operatic Society in Sheffield, to Schola Cantorum of Oxford, ethnomusicological work, and a brief period of playing the viol!

Although his undergraduate research project focussed on English church music of the immediate pre-Reformation period, Andrew has recently prepared some material on Felix Mendelssohn’s connections with England for the Portsmouth Festivities 2006. His next project, in connection with his post as Archivist of Schola Cantorum of Oxford, is a history of the choir during the 1970s.

Andrew has had an interest in composition since his schooldays; his short oratorio Lazarus, premièred in Oxford in May, will be brought to a Portsmouth audience at a Lunchtime Live next March.

Andrew is a keen composer: in 2001, the incidental music to Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (which he co-composed) was premi?red with Andrew as co-conductor; his Christmas anthem "Christ is Born" was recorded by Sheffield Schools' Girls Choir. The song cycle "Love, Light and Peace" based on poems of Spike Milligan was premiered to great acclaim in Oxford in June, achieving the highest audience of any student-run concert in St. John?s College in that term.

Andrew specialises in editing musical and religious articles on Wikipedia.