JANE HOBSON
Music Director - for the Year from Sep 2023 - Aug 2024
Jane trained to be a fully qualified teacher of music and alongside her work in a large Comprehensive school, she was developing a very successful career as a vocal soloist. Jane appeared on the operatic stage locally and in Leeds along with many renowned concert platforms around Great Britain. She has recorded solo performances for both radio and television and became a popular guest for ‘Last night of the Proms’ concerts.
A well-respected and successful vocal tutor of both individual scholars and choirs, Jane co-founded and Directed Hobsons Chorus for seventeen years, was Musical Director to Penistone Ladies Choir for over eleven years and is regularly called upon to take workshops and rehearsals. Her present role as MD to Skelmanthorpe Male Voice Choir of almost fifteen years, has seen her take the choir to success and numerous trophies in competitions such as the Mrs. Sunderland, Eskdale, Ilkley & Don Valley, and Jane has had the privilege of conducting the Black Dyke Band in their Christmas concerts together.
Her motivational, enthusiastic, and encouraging approach has seen hundreds of people perform beyond their own expectations in both her popular ‘Come & Sing Messiah’ projects as well as those which have included children and adults alike. She has raised thousands of pounds for charity and persuaded some of the best local instrumentalists to accompany!
Coro Amici, Jane’s project choir, gives the opportunity for all singers who wish to join a singular project and sing in wonderful venues both here and abroad.
For more information please contact: coroamici2020@gmail.com or follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoroAmici2020
It is, however, the greatest privilege to be looking after this wonderful, Cawthorne Choral Society whilst Sarah Ogden is taking her sabbatical year.
RACHEL MATHIESON
Accompanist and assistant MD from September 2023
Rachel graduated with a first class BMus in 2007 and a PhD in Music in 2016 from the University of Hull. She also has a BA in Modern Languages and a DPhil in Education from the University of Oxford. Between 2007 and 2018, Rachel taught privately and in schools in Hull and the East Riding. She has also taught Music and Modern Languages more recently at Wakefield Grammar School Foundation. Currently, Rachel is Evidence, Impact and Learning Manager for an education charity, having worked for several years as a Research Fellow in the School of Education, University of Leeds.
A pianist, singer and conductor, Rachel has performed with many ensembles and societies. With the Hessle Sinfonia, she has been piano soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor. She has been soprano soloist in many works including Mozart’s Requiem and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and has been a guest conductor of a number of choirs and orchestras.
Rachel’s greatest musical achievement, however, has been Invitatione, an agile ensemble of singers and players which she founded in 2011. As Musical Director of Invitatione, Rachel has organised and conducted concerts, in Beverley Minster, Hull Minster and other churches; of works including Handel’s Messiah, Brahms - Ein Deutsches Requiem, Bach Cantatas, and Chamber works by Gesualdo, Byrd, Charpentier and Corelli, the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Symphonies of Dvořák, the Fifth and Tenth Symphonies of Shostakovich, and much more, all of which can be discovered at www.invitatione.org.
Rachel can be contacted at md@invitatione.org or rachel@truenorthed.org