Who’s who?

Bridget Budge read Music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where she was the holder of a Choral Exhibition (scholarship). Her formative experience in Trinity College Choir and the inspirational conducting of the late Richard Marlow has led her back to the choral repertoire after a successful career as a contralto soloist in Germany and the UK.

She is the founder and conductor of Halifax-based chamber choir ORION, and is in demand as a choral leader, vocal coach (Huddersfield Choral Society, Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield) and concert facilitator (Square Chapel for the Arts, Brighouse Festival). She was Music Director of the Pennine Spring Festival for six years, and has taught singing at Leeds University and Leeds College of Music. She occasionally still appears in recital and was last seen leading audiences in Rule Britannia with Black Dyke Band in their 2019 Summer Proms concerts!

Born in Zambia in 1972, Stephen Muir gained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Music from Birmingham University, specialising in singing and percussion at Birmingham Conservatoire, and studying conducting under George Hurst at Canford. As Associate Professor in Music at the University of Leeds, his research focuses on 19th-century Russian music, and Jewish liturgical music in the diaspora, particularly Southern Africa.

From 2014 to 2018 he was Principal Investigator for the £1.8m AHRC-funded international project Performing the Jewish Archive (ptja.leeds.ac.uk), resulting in performances in Sydney, Cape Town and Prague, and closer to home at London’s Wigmore Hall, and at the UK Parliament’s Holocaust Memorial Day Annual Commemoration.

He has worked extensively in the UK as a singer, percussionist and conductor, including recordings and broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. With the Leeds Baroque Choir and Orchestra under the direction of Peter Holman he has sung the J. S. Bach Evangelist roles on several occasions, and recently appeared as timpanist for the debut of Leeds Baroque’s new hand-crafted kettle drums, alongside trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins. He is Assistant Director of The Clothworkers Consort of Leeds.