Martin Bussey

Martin Bussey combines the roles of composer and conductor. Mary’s Hand, a one-woman show created with Di Sherlock and mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin, premiered in the summer of 2018 to great critical acclaim. The Independent in its five-star review considered the piece outstanding with evocative music, while The Stage called the music linear, finely-wrought and daringly spare. Future performances into 2020, after a very successful visit to the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester in 2019, include New Paths Festival in Beverley and two performances at The Tower of London. The BBC broadcasts performances of Martin’s songs regularly from the Ludlow English Song Weekend. Recordings include Through a glass, a recording of songs, by Marcus Farnsworth, James Baillieu and an ensemble directed by Thomas Kemp on Resonus Classics. The Observer described Through a glass, darkly as ‘an enthralling piece, which makes a philosophical exploration of dreams and reality’.

A CD of Martin’s choral music sung by the London-based professional choir, Sonoro, directed by Neil Ferris, was released by Resonus Classics in November 2019. Organist Tom Bell has recorded several of Martin’s organ works on a London Independent Records CD, Northern Lights.

Martin currently directs the Chester Bach Singers and is a vocal tutor at Manchester University. He is Chairman of the Finzi Friends and a director of Ludlow English Song. Martin was a Choral Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and singing with John Carol Case, after which he studied singing as a post-graduate at the Royal Northern College of Music. He ran the aural, academic music and choral programmes at Chetham’s School of Music, where he taught from 1988 to 2013.

He has just completed Timeless Figure a music-visual arts piece for rising baritone Peter Edge, inspired by the clockmakers Joyce of Whitchurch and is working on a commissioned solo cantata to mark the 700^th anniversary of Pinner Parish Church for the 2021 Pinner Music Festival.