Apprentice Conductor

The Ripieno Choir is proud to support an apprentice conductor position, created to provide choral conducting experience and training to a young musician for whom this is an important area of interest. This novel initiative attracted coverage in Making Music’s High Notes magazine. You can read the article here

The Apprentice Conductor receives regular tuition in choral conducting from our music director, Patrick Allies, free of charge, all whilst singing with the choir in our weekly rehearsals. As their skills and confidence grow over the year, the Apprentice Conductor takes on some conducting responsibilities within rehearsals, and has the opportunity to conduct us in our concerts.

What is it like?

Don’t just take our word for it, this is what our most recent apprentice conductors have made of the experience:

• It’s been a brilliant experience. I’ve loved singing with such a big choir – it’s much more relaxing than the two-to-a-part that I do a lot of the time – and the repertoire has been really interesting and not music that I would necessarily have known otherwise. The atmosphere of the choir is wonderful and everyone is incredibly welcoming, which meant that standing up in front of everyone and conducting was much less daunting than it might have been. It was also lovely to get to know everyone over the course of the year, not least my fellow apprentices, without whom the entire experience would have been much more scary. I will truly miss the Ripieno Choir – it’s been a wonderful year.
• At school [we do] mostly chordal homophonic stuff, so to be dealing with more complex polyphony (e.g. the Charpentier) was a nice challenge. And I’ve just really enjoyed coming in every Sunday to sing with you guys, it’s just been a personal highlight every week.
• I feel more confident in sight-singing now, and it’s been very interesting to learn by osmosis the styles and traditions of renaissance and baroque choral music which I’d never really considered, and to find myself forming my own opinions on them. It’s also been a wonderful opportunity to make new friends, both within my age group and branching out beyond that comfort zone.

Apprentice Conductors 2026/27

Jason Fan

Jason is in his second year of sixth form at Guildford County School. He is studying music and music technology A levels and hopes to continue with music technology at university. Jason plays the violin to grade 8 and at school is involved in many ensembles including the senior and barbershop choirs and the string orchestra. Jason has really enjoyed opportunities to conduct in school; he leads rehearsals for a lower school strings orchestra and has conducted a choir in a competition.

Ben Russel

Ben is also in his first year of sixth form studying Music at Esher College. He has been attending Colourstrings music school (which follows the Kodaly approach) since he was very young. He plays the piano and has sung in several choirs, on occasion stepping up to conduct. Ben enjoys composition and has ambitions to write music for films.

Can I apply for an Apprentice Conductor position?

We plan to open applications for an additional Apprentice Conductor position in September 2026. In the meantime, please review the information below to learn more about the position.

Who is it for?

The position is designed for a sixth form music student who aspires to conduct choirs as part of a musical career, perhaps as an organ scholar. Students should appreciate that conducting, like any other branch of musical performance, requires study and practice, and is prepared to commit it over the long term. This is not a ‘quick fix’ to someone a month before they have a university music award audition, for example.

The apprentice conductor will currently be in school year 11 or 12 and will begin their work with the choir during school years 12 or 13 (lower or upper sixth form). The ideal candidate will probably, but not necessarily:

• be studying, or intending to study, music to A Level
• be intending to read music at university, perhaps as a Choral or Organ Scholar
• be a confident sight singer (even if singing is not their main ‘instrument’ – vocal quality is not the issue)
• have achieved at least a merit at grade eight in their principal instrument
• expect to sing in the choir
• if a fluent keyboard player, occasionally accompany the choir (although much of our rehearsal is actually unaccompanied, whatever the repertoire).

What is the commitment?

The Ripieno Choir rehearses near Thames Ditton on Sunday evenings from 19:45 to 21:45 during term time. Tuition for the apprentice conductor will normally take place before rehearsals, as agreed between them and our Musical Director.

In addition, the Ripieno Choir has a history of offering short-term membership (usually for one or two years) to young singers who might be preparing for university choral scholarship auditions. Such singers typically rehearse and perform with the choir in their sixth form or gap years.