Russell Medley

Russell has had a long association with us. He has been our Musical Director since 1983 and was our accompanist for 10 years prior to that.

Russell is a Senior Vocal Coach/Repetiteur in the School of Vocal and Opera Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. He was born in Cheshire and studied piano from an early age, subsequently playing in many concerts both as soloist and accompanist. After his graduation from the RNCM where he studied piano, double bass, composition and conducting, he decided to specialize in accompaniment and spent two years of postgraduate study culminating in a Performer’s Diploma with Distinction in Accompaniment.

Most of his professional experience has been in the coaching and accompaniment of singers and he has travelled widely throughout the UK playing for recitals and Master Classes in such venues as the Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, the Cheltenham Festival and the Isle of Man. His career has taking him many times abroad, performing in the Channel Islands, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Russell has participated in various recordings for BBC, ITV and RTE (Ireland).

Conducting has been a very successful part of his musical career. Over the years he has worked with leading conductors. He has been involved in many concerts as Assistant Chorus Master to the Halle Choir as well as other choral societies. As Chorus Master of the RNCM Chamber Choir and Opera Chorus he has been involved in many of the major RNCM opera productions as well as playing for staged opera excerpts in many occasions. Russell is also Musical Director of the Sale Choral Society and has been the Musical Director of The Lindow Singers and the Northern England Chorale which toured Cyprus to perform Mozart’s Requiem and Haydn’s Nelson Mass in the Autumn 2014 and Brahms’ German Requiem in Prague in September 2015. Other tours with these choirs have included Mozart programmes in Vienna and Bratislava, a return visit to Cyprus with a Mendelssohn programme and a performance of Haydn’s Creation in Delft (Holland).

Part of Russell’s long thriving career has been private teaching practice in singing and piano. Many of his students have achieved great success in numerous competitions and exams not only in the UK but also abroad. He has been a singing and piano tutor at the Centre for Young Musicians (CYM) in Den Haag (Holland) from 2005 to 2017 and he is tutor in piano and accompanist for other instrumentalists and singers at Moreton Hall School in Shropshire as well as teaching and coaching in Greater Manchester, Cheshire and The Wirral with a high rate of success. For over 30 years Russell was a national and international examiner for the Associated Board of Royal Schools of Music, an activity that he finished in 2017.