ALEX PATTERSON MMus 
Director of Music

Alex Patterson is a Northern Irish-born composer and conductor based in Nottingham. In addition to his role at Nottingham Cathedral, Alex is Musical Director for the Radcliffe Ladies’ Choir and conducts Nottingham Lunchtime Voices based in the Nottingham Royal Centre, and Beacon Voices, Leicestershire's Children in Care Choir. He also runs the Robin Hood Youth Choir for Nottingham Music Hub, together with Ellie Martin.

​Alex is currently Musical Director for Nottingham Playhouse's community production of Coram Boy. ​

Alex studied at the University of Nottingham and later at Birmingham Conservatoire specialising in composition and opera. Since graduating seven years ago, Alex has developed a wealth of experience as a choral animateur, particularly for community and youth music-making, and leads singing workshops across the East Midlands with people of all ages and abilities. He has also conducted a range of major works including Spem in Alium, the 40-part motet by Tallis, Handel's Dixit Dominus, J. S. Bach's Mass in B Minor, Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, both Duruflé’s and Fauré’s Requiem, and the musical thriller Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim.
 
Between his various conducting duties and also working for Arts Council England, Alex is a freelance composer. He has written a wealth of choral music which has been performed all over the world, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and published by Banks Music Publications, and composed music for a range of organisations from Music for Everyone to Streetwise Opera. 

He is also a trustee for the Binns Organ Trust and Finzi Trust.
​www.alexpatterson.co.uk

ROBERT GOWER MA FRCO (CHM) LRAM ARCM FRSA 
​Organist

Robert Gower held scholarships at the Royal School of Church Music and Lincoln College, Oxford before a teaching career which led successively from St Paul’s School to Radley College, working as Precentor - Director of Music - for fourteen years and then to Glenalmond College, where he was also Housemaster of a boys’ boarding house and worked until 2012 as Senior Tutor, with responsibility for stimulating intellectual challenge amongst the most academically able pupils.

Robert founded the Percy Whitlock Trust in 1981 and served as Chairman until its closure in 2016.  He is Chairman of the Gerald Finzi charitable trust and examines for ABRSM and the Royal College of Organists. His publications include composer organ albums for Bliss, Finzi and Walton, an edition of John Ireland’s organ music, with OUP anthologies of Ceremonial, Christmas and Lent/Easter repertoire for organ (plus separate collections for manuals only). Robert works extensively within hymnody, contributing original tunes and arrangements, for example to Hymns Ancient & Modern and the Oxford Book of Descants).

ELLIE MARTIN BMus (Hons) LTCL
Youth Choir Director

Ellie began her musical training at a young age, learning the violin and piano, before later focusing on singing. She went on to study Vocal Performance at Trinity College of Music, and graduated in 2010 with First Class Honours. Ellie has extensive experience as a singing teacher and vocal animateur, and for several years was the Vocal Coordinator for Bird College Music Service in the London Borough of Bexley. In this role she directed choirs from age 4 to adult, and conducted a massed choir of over 1000 in the Royal Festival Hall on several occasions.

Ellie is originally from South-East London, but moved to Nottingham in 2016 to undertake a master’s degree in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University, which she recently completed, gaining a Distinction. Ellie is the Youth Choir Director at Nottingham Cathedral and Musical Director for Mansfield Choral Society. She also conducts several community adult choirs for Music for Everyone, and is one of the conductors for their Junior Voices choir. 

Aside from her conducting work, Ellie is a professional singer, and a member of London-based choir Blossom Street, with whom she has toured internationally. Ellie features as a soloist, as well as part of the ensemble, on Sleep, Holy Babe, Down by the Sea and A Short While For Dreaming, three CDs released by the choir, which have all received critical acclaim.

GRAEME VERNON ARMCM
Organist Emeritus

Graeme Vernon was educated in Nottingham before moving to Manchester where he studied organ at the Royal Manchester College of Music, gaining the ARMCM diploma. Whilst in Manchester he was organist and choirmaster at St Michael and all Angels, Lawton Moor, Wythenshaw, and later at the church of St Martin's, Marple Bridge, Cheshire.

Returning to Nottingham he joined the parish of St Augustine of Canterbury, New Basford as organist and later choirmaster until the church closed and was invited to Nottingham Cathedral as assistant to Peter Smedley - to take over the parish mass and to assist at the High Mass. Graeme continues at the 10am Mass, working with a small group of singers to provide a simple congregational sung mass.