Meet the Team
Philip Young
Musical Director
Philip joined the Festival committee in 1980, and was chairman from 1990 to 2003 and from 2008 to 2022. As well as being involved with the Festival, he has conducted Fernhurst and Rogate choral societies and has been Musical Director or accompanist for a number of productions by Petersfield Theatre group.
Rob Walker
Treasurer
Rob has been treasurer since 2017. His objectives include protecting the charity’s financial position, enabling it to continue to be viable and thrive, maintaining accurate and timely accounts, adopting modern techniques, systems and payment methods, and treating our musicians and suppliers fairly and reasonably.
Simon Mason
Secretary
Simon is the Secretary of the Petersfield Musical Festival Committee. A keen singer in his school days, he joined Petersfield Choral Society 15 years ago. He sings bass and has performed at every Festival since then. The Vivaldi and Brahms concerts have been his favourites in recent years.
Tony Newberry
Box office and data protection
Tony became a trustee of the Festival in 2015 when he established online ticketing. As the only non-musician on the Festival Committee he sometimes feels a bit of a fraud, even though he is the father of a young musician. But not performing does leave him free to undertake some of the more prosaic, but vital, technical responsibilities.
Sarah Hard
Press and Publicity
Sarah is responsible for press and publicity, as well as for recruiting and managing choral soloists. A former financial journalist and banker, she is now a qualified music teacher and organizes fund-raising concerts for young musicians. Sarah is also on the board of other music non-profit organizations and is a keen amateur singer.
Sally Maybury
Choir Secretary
The job of coordinating the choirs and independent singers participating in the festival is one Sally loves, enabling her to meet festival participants and be involved in the organisation of the festival. Being a parent, an accountant and, briefly, a teacher constitute a more useful training for this, perhaps, than her current life as a farmer.
Sue Bint
Administrator for the Michael Hurd Fund for Young Musicians
Sue was closely involved in the Festival’s Youth Concerts for several years during her tenure as Head of Junior School Music at Churcher’s College and her various positions within Hampshire Music Service, including directing the Petersfield Area Schools’ String Orchestra. As leader of Basingstoke Symphony Orchestra and a member of SouthDowns Camerata she very much enjoys being involved in accompanying the Festival’s choral concerts.
Sheila Rowe
Backstage manager
Sheila has, for many years, been involved with the musical life of Petersfield. For 18 years she was music school administrator at Bedales and is currently librarian for Southern Pro Musica. Her role within the Festival is to look after all the orchestras and soloists during rehearsal and performance.
Steve Bartholomew
Petersfield Orchestra representative
Steve Bartholomew has been the Petersfield Orchestra representative on the Committee since becoming Orchestra Chairman in 2015. His principal role is to ensure that the Orchestra offers attractive programme options for its festival concerts and delivers an excellent quality of performance. Steve is an amateur bassoonist and has been a regular player with Petersfield Orchestra since 2014.
Geoff Culbertson
Hall manager
Geoff became involved with the Musical Festival after he was employed as a caretaker at Petersfield Festival Hall until his retirement, and was then enrolled by the festival committee as a hall manager during the festival, due to his knowledge of the hall. He has sung in many concerts at the Festival Hall, not all of them during the festival. He sings with the Hampshire Police Male Voice Choir and with the Phœnix Singers, a mixed-voice choir.
Nancy Buck
Friends’ Secretary
Nancy started singing in choirs while at school. Her first encounter with the Festival was as a new member of Alton Choral Society in 1985 and she has sung in the Festival Chorus most years since. She joined the Festival Committee in 2007, firstly as a choir rep for ACS and then as Friends’ Secretary from 2009.
Simon O’Hea
Online media
Simon has developed this website in tandem with the whole team. He also manages the festival’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. His day job is as a freelance technical translator but his background is in marketing and one of his hobbies is choral singing. He runs Music in Portsmouth, a classical music events and news website, and sings with the Renaissance Choir and Chichester Voluntary Choir.
Jonathan Willcocks
President
Jonathan Willcocks combines conducting, both of choral and orchestra repertoire, with extensive composition work and he has also held major posts in general and specialist music education – most recently at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Current appointments include Musical Director of the Chichester Singers, Guildford Choral Society, Leith Hill Music Festival and the professional chamber orchestra Southern Pro Musica. Full details can be found at www.jonathanwillcocks.com. He is proud to be President of the Petersfield Musical Festival.
Nigel Roberts
Fernhurst Choral Society representative
After singing in church choirs in his youth, Nigel took up choral singing again on retirement from an overseas engineering career. He is Chairman of the Fernhurst Choral Society and also sings in a recently formed mixed voice chamber choir, the Siena Singers, based in St Catherine of Siena Church, Cocking. Nigel Is also vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees at Godalming 6th Form College.
Gerard McCloskey
Rogate Choral Society representative
In a distant time started singing as one of the three little maids from school, but time moved him into the bass line, first at school and then as his job as a journalist took him to choirs in Shropshire, in Twickenham and finally to Petersfield where he started singing in a Michael Hurd production for the Operatic Society. With Rogate Choral Society, where he is now chairman, he has sung in numerous Petersfield musical festivals as well as overseeing the publication of the Rogate Song Book, a collection of compositions by the society’s former music director Alan Drake.
Charlotte Beck
Festival programme editor
Charlotte is an enthusiastic choral singer and has for several years been closely involved with publicity and marketing for both Guildford Choral and Southern Pro Musica’s ‘Music for Guildford’ initiative. She is a newly-elected member of the PMF committee, with responsibility for managing the compilation, editing and production of the Festival programme. She likes a challenge and is very much looking forward to her first season in this role.
