Timetable

Each session will last 35–45 mins and will include a short Q&A. There will be two tea breaks and a lunch break slot.

10am – Introduction and Welcome from Hugh Morris

10.05am – Music as Mission: Giving the Church a Voice

The Dean of Chapel at St John’s College The Revd Canon Dr Vicky Johnson, Cambridge explores how music can be harnessed as a missional tool for the church.

10.50am – Sir James MacMillan in conversation with Hugh Morris, RSCM Director

Live Interview with Sir James MacMillan – Celebrated composer and conductor Sir James MacMillan will be ‘in conversation’ with RSCM’s Director Hugh Morris, sharing his views on topics including the role of music in worship. Not to be missed!

11.30am – BREAK

11.45am – Local Leadership

Join Richard Hubbard in exploring how local leadership can encourage musicians to make inspiring music in worship. Discover how to engage your congregation’s gifts and potential.

12.30pm – The Reluctant Leader: From Choir Stalls to Conductor

Watch a curated panel discussion on navigating the transition to leadership in music. Gain insights from Dr Tim Williams, Lucy Adcock, Katy Cooper, and Eleanor Jarvis.

1.15pm – LUNCH

2pm – Music Leadership: ‘Two Heads are Better Than One’

Presented live from the National Musicians Church, Holy Sepulchre, London.

Join us for a conversation with Dean The Very Revd Abi Thompson and Director of Music Tom Daggett (Sheffield Cathedral); The Revd Sandy Clarke and Director of Music Jordan Theis (St Thomas on the Bourne, Farnham) on how clergy and music leaders can work in synergy. Sharing case studies showing how both ‘sides’ as they are so often characterised as can work together successfully as a team.

This session is presented in partnership with Holy Sepulchre, and also forms part of their in-person conference on music and spirituality: “Musical Mission: Music and Spirituality Conference 2025”

3pm – BREAK

3.15pm – Learning Through Teaching: Rethinking Leadership

Experienced choral director, and RSCM Chief Examiner Adrian Lucas explores practical approaches for incorporating questioning into work with choirs and singers, fostering their skills as ‘thinking musicians’ and encouraging their musical independence.

4pm – Young People as Leaders, Not Followers

We will be joined by Hannah Persaud from the Growing Faith team from the Church of England who will discuss approaches and strategies that unlock the leadership potential of young people and empower them to find their voice.

  Sir James Macmillan

Sir James MacMillan is one of today’s most successful composers and performs internationally as a conductor. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience and close connection with Celtic folk music.

MacMillan first became internationally recognised after the success of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the BBC Proms in 1990. His music has since been performed and broadcast around the world. Major works include percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, a cello concerto for Mstislav Rostropovich and five symphonies. Recent works include his Christmas Oratorio premiered by the London Philharmonic in 2021, and Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia premiered by the Cincinnati Symphony in 2023.

MacMillan enjoys a successful career as a conductor, and is praised for the composer’s insight he brings to each score. Conducting highlights include the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, St Louis Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and BBC Symphony. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic until 2013 and Composer/Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic until 2009.

Highlights of the 2024/25 season include the world premiere of MacMillan’s Concerto for Orchestra (co-commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia and Singapore Symphony) by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antonio Pappano. MacMillan’s euphonium concerto, Where the Lugar meets the Glaisnock, receives its world premiere by David Childs and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by MacMillan. Elsewhere this season, MacMillan conducts the Hungarian National Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra. This year’s Stockholm Philharmonic Composer Festival is dedicated to MacMillan.

MacMillan founded music festival The Cumnock Tryst in 2014, which takes place annually in his native Ayrshire. In 2024, the Festival celebrate their tenth anniversary by launching their International Summer School for Composers, directed by MacMillan and open to young composers worldwide.

MacMillan has conducted many of his own works on disc for Chandos, BIS and BMG. A recent highlight is a series on Challenge Records, including MacMillan’s violin concerto A Deep but Dazzling Darkness and percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel with Colin Currie and the Netherlands Radio Kamer Filharmonie. MacMillan’s recent release on Harmonia Mundi conducting Britten Sinfonia won the 2016 BBC Music Magazine Award.

MacMillan was awarded a CBE in 2004 and a Knighthood in 2015. He was appointed a Fellow of the Ivors Academy in 2024.

The works of Sir James MacMillan are published by Boosey & Hawkes.
Sir James MacMillan is represented by Intermusica.

  The Very Reverend Abi Thompson

Abi was born in Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and sang with the award winning girls choir, Cantamus, as she was growing up. She studied music at King’s College, London and then worked in music publishing for several years. At the same time she sang with several professional vocal ensembles including Polyphony, The Cambridge Singers and she appeared with the King’s Consort on the soundtrack for the film ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Singing religious texts in churches around London gradually drew to the surface a sense of call to priesthood and, in 2003 she began training for ordained ministry at Westcott House in Cambridge. She was ordained priest in 2007, served her curacy on the Manor Estates in Sheffield and then became Vicar of St James, Clifton in Rotherham. She was Sub Dean of St Albans Cathedral for four years before becoming Dean of Sheffield in 2021.

  Jordan Theis

Jordan has been director of music at St Thomas-on-The Bourne since 2022, where he conducts separate boy and girl choristers, an amateur back row and a changing voices group. He is in demand as a choral conductor, regularly working with the National Youth Choirs, Barts Choir, St Botolph-without-Aldgate and Reading University Choirs. He teaches piano and is an accompanist at Guildford High School, and volunteers as a Future Leader with the Cathedral Music Trust.

  Richard Hubbard

Richard Hubbard is Music Development Director at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, working with small churches across Suffolk to help them make the best use of music with limited resources. He leads the recently-formed Suffolk Music for Growing Faith network, and directs the inter-church choir Cantus Firmus. He lectures in music for worship at London School of Theology, and is currently working on RSCM’s Music for Small Churches project.

  The Reverend Sandy Clarke

Sandy has served as Vicar of The Bourne and Tilford for the last two and a half years having also trained as curate in this parish prior to her appointment. Her passion is outreach and working with other churches, something that the choirs at St Thomas-on-The Bourne support in their annual time of travelling Evensong: a season where our church goes out to other churches in the area to share the joy of sung worship.

  Lucy Adcock

Lucy Adcock first sang in her local parish church choir at the age of 12, joining her Dad in the choir. She has continued to sing in choirs ever since. Throughout this time she has participated in a RSCM training days and festivals building her music skills, and now finds herself in a voluntary role as her church’s Director of Music. This involves selecting the music programme for services as well as leading the singers and musicians in various combinations and of course continuing to sing as much as possible.

  The Reverend Canon Victoria Johnson

Victoria Johnson is Dean of Chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge. Her life in the church began as a parish chorister, earning the RSCM red ribbon and trying to play the organ. Singing and music have been a golden thread running through her ministry, and she believes, a vital part of the church’s mission. She read Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge University and the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, USA. After parish ministry in Manchester, she was made a Residentiary Canon at Ely Cathedral combining the portfolios of mission and pastoral care, as well as directing the cathedral’s community choir. In 2020, she was appointed Canon Precentor of York Minster. She has taught liturgy and homiletics, and served on national church bodies in the areas of mission, public affairs, environment and evangelism. She is a member of the College of Archbishops’ Evangelists, trustee of the Ryedale Festival, Church Music Society, and Honorary Canon Theologian at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. She still sings as cantor at St John’s alongside the world-famous College Choir and in a local Chamber Choir as first soprano. Victoria has recently published her first book, On Voice: Speech, Song, Silence, Human and Divine (DLT, 2024).

  Tom Daggett

Tom Daggett is a conductor, educator and organist based at Sheffield Cathedral. As Director of Music & Schools Singing Programme, Tom is developing the musical life of the cathedral based on an education programme extending across the Diocese. With a heart for people as much as music, Tom has had a varied career, ranging from community organising with Citizens UK to working with homeless and addiction services in bringing music to those on the margins.

Tom spent nine years at St Paul’s Cathedral where he founded a successful partnership programme benefitting schools in the Diocese in the most under-resourced areas. Centring on cathedral music, the programme included the Hackney Children’s Choir (which he founded with Fr Niall Weir at Paul’s West Hackney in 2013), and latterly the Hackney Senior Choir for young people at risk of exclusion or criminal activity, with backing from the Mayor of London.

A native of Yorkshire, Tom grew up in Burnley, and went to school in Blackburn, where he held an organ scholarship in Blackburn Cathedral. Tom studied with Greg Morris, Steven Grahl and David Graham, and has regularly collaborated with the Royal College of Organists. Tom is a prize-winning graduate in music from Lincoln College, Oxford, where he held the Hollingsworth Organ Scholarship.

  Hannah Persaud

Hannah Persaud is the Networks Lead at the Growing Faith Foundation, part of the National Society for Education.

  Eleanor Jarvis

Eleanor Jarvis is a graduate of the University of Manchester, where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in music with a focus in vocal studies and conducting under the tutelage of Kathryn Rudge and Robert Guy. She is a committed singer, having been a chorister for 12 years and a past member of Ad Solem Chamber Choir, The Cosmo Singers and the University of Manchester Chorus. Throughout this time, Eleanor has performed in venues such as Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s cathedral and has participated in numerous choir tours to cathedrals across the country and abroad.

As an experienced vocal tutor, choral conductor and musical director, Eleanor enjoys a varied career as a freelance musician in Sheffield and Manchester. She is the Director of Music of the Steel City Choristers, teaches vocal studies at Sheffield College, delivers singing workshops in primary schools with Pimlico Opera and is Director of Music of Sheffield Music Hub’s Youth Voices choir. Across the Pennines in Manchester, Eleanor teaches voice lessons at Semitone Studios and is the Choral and Conducting Tutor at Xaverian College, where she conducts the chamber choir and runs the student conducting programme.

As a freelance conductor, Eleanor has worked with ensembles such as the Sheffield Bach Choir, Hallé Ancoats Community Choir, NEW Voices, Meraki Choir, The Lindow Singers, Crosby Capriol Singers and Semitone Singers, as well as Blackpool Symphony Orchestra.

Eleanor is currently an Emerging Leader with the Royal School of Church Music 2024-2025, assisting at their Residential Choral Course in Bath and participating in various training workshops throughout the year. In recent years Eleanor has participated in several conducting masterclasses with the RNCM, Cardiff International Academy of Conducting as well as Musicfest Aberystwyth. During these masterclasses she has worked with conductors such as David Hill, Stuart Overington, Hilary Davan Wetton, Ellie Slorach, Jonathan Mann and Toby Purser. Eleanor has also worked as an assistant conductor for various projects, including the premier of Paul Mealor’s community opera ‘Gelert’ at the North Wales International Music Festival in 2022.

In her remaining time, Eleanor sings in the choir at St John’s Church Ranmoor, deputises in Sheffield Cathedral Choir and studies voice with Vivien Pike. She has also begun to learn the organ and is junior organ scholar at St Mark’s Church Broomhill.