Benjamin Nicholas

Ben is our Director of Music, and in September 2018 became Principal Conductor of the Oxford Bach Choir. He has appeared as a conductor with the BBC Singers, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia and the Holst Singers. In June 2018 he made his debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Elgar’s The Apostles.
 
Ben's work at Merton has included the founding of the annual Passiontide Festival, the installation of the Dobson Organ and the creation of the College's Girls' Choir, which sang for the first time in October 2016. He has conducted the College Choir in concerts in the USA, Italy, Sweden and France, on BBC Radio 3 & 4 and BBC TV, and on a series of recordings for Delphian, the first of which was a Gramophone Editor's Choice. His other recordings include discs of Weelkes, Mozart, Stainer, Stanford, Rutter, Gabriel Jackson, Richard Allain, and the organ works of Elgar. 
 
Ben has conducted many first performances, and premiered a new work by Charlotte Bray with the City of London Sinfonia in Southwark Cathedral. In the Cheltenham Music Festival he premiered new choral works by Judith Weir, Hannah Kendall, Dobrinka Tabakova and Kerry Andrew, and at Merton he has commissioned Birtwistle, Dove, MacMillan, Jackson and Joubert.
 
Benjamin was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and has held organ scholarships at Chichester Cathedral, Lincoln College, Oxford and St Paul's Cathedral. He is a former Director of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum and the Edington Music Festival.