Ex Officio
Music Director: Calum Fraser
Accompanist: Samuel Ali
Calum Fraser is a versatile conductor who specialises in choral and operatic repertoire. He studied at The University of Manchester and with Simon Halsey, Adrian Partington and Sarah Tenant-Flowers.
Calum is currently the Director of Music at St Leonard’s Church in Streatham and Musical Director of Streatham Choral. He is Director of Choirs and a conducting tutor at The University of Nottingham, with whom he travelled to Malaysia in 2016 and directed orchestral performances in Ningbo and Zhejiang, China, in 2017.
Calum is also a founding Musical Director of Scottish professional chamber choir Caledonian Voices and the founding Artistic Director of Magnetic Opera, with whom he has conducted The Barber of Seville, Maria Stuarda, La bohème, The Medium and The Marriage of Figaro. Previously, he was Musical Director of Farnham & Bourne Choral Society, Winterbourne Opera and Opera’r Ddraig and worked with ensembles including St George’s Singers and Ad Solem.
Calum has appeared in masterclasses with leading conductors including Richard Bonynge and Eric Whitacre.
Samuel Ali was born in Gravesend, Kent, and has Turkish and Italian heritage.
Samuel is the Organist of Christ Church, Chelsea; Associate Organist at St. Pancras Old Church, School Organist at Thomas’s, Kensington; Accompanist of Streatham Choral, and Accompanist of the West Barnes Singers. He combines this with much freelance work across London and is in demand as a teacher.
Samuel studied the organ at the Royal College of Music as a postgraduate and at the Royal Northern College of Music as an undergraduate, having gained scholarships to both institutions. Before going to college, Samuel was the Organ Scholar at Rochester Cathedral.
He has performed across the UK, as well as in Paris, Moscow and Slovakia. Whilst at the Royal College of Music he was the soloist in Poulenc’s Organ Concerto (2018) and gave a solo concert tour to Slovakia in 2019.