Our director
The current director of York Cantores is Peter Collis.
Peter Collis
Like so many other musicians, Peter’s early musical experiences were at Chetham's
School, and as a Cathedral chorister. He first crossed the Pennines to study in
Yorkshire, and his conducting studies continued in France with Helene Guy.
He was a schoolteacher in Manchester before moving to London to work on groundbreaking music education projects in choral music, and to develop his career as a conductor. He ran a professional choir for ten years, and founded Cockpit Opera, which led to the development of Opera in Education throughout the country. His work at this time included an acclaimed video recording of The Marriage of Figaro. Always embracing diversity, his work also included musicals, summer seasons, pantomimes and the Musical Direction of Mediterranean cruise ships.
However, Peter's core interest and specialism has always been choral music, especially chamber choirs. He is frequently invited to conduct choirs in France and Belgium, worked for many years in former Yugoslavia running an international choral festival, was Vice-Chairman of Sing for Pleasure for almost twenty years, and a member of the Board of A Coeur Joie, the choral singing movement.
In the late 1980s Peter was invited to work at the Barbican Centre. Among the more memorable special events he planned, were 800 flautists playing the overture to Mozart's the Magic Flute, and an international billiards tournament. This, in turn, led to a career in the management of arts organisations, and Peter was Chief Executive of a regional chamber orchestra, ran an opera company, and a music theatre company, before returning to Yorkshire as a University Lecturer.
He is delighted to be in his third year with York Cantores, combining this with his current work for the Open University, and playing golf. He and his wife live in a splendid village on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.
