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President: His Grace, The Duke of Northumberland
Conductor: Gillian Coop
Leader: Eric Nixon
Registered Charity No. 1071245
This photograph was taken at the Dec 2009 concert. Gallery 1 has more photos of this concert and some from other recent concerts. Gallery 2 shows mainly a rehearsal in 2001 and Gallery 3 contains mainly archive material.
Our Conductor
Gillian Coop (our first female conductor) has been directing the Northumberland Orchestral Society since 1993.
Born in Leeds, she spent most of her school days in Cheshire, attending Altrincham Grammar School where her musical interests were encouraged, learning piano and violin and performing in choirs, orchestras and chamber music ensembles.
She studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music and then came to Newcastle to teach music at Central High School. Here, as Director of Music, she taught music (including piano and violin) to 12 to 18 year olds, and directed choirs, orchestras and chamber music. The choirs,in particular, were very successful in numerous national and international competitions and attended the International Festival for Youth and Music in Vienna for several years and toured Germany.
As a young child she was encouraged to make music, singing to her father's accompaniment and, for many years, playing piano duets with him and accompanying her grandfather's singing. Her father and grandfather were among the first to perform live on the BBC. Her mother, although not a performing musician, was her best critic !
Gillian now spends much of her time at the Sage, singing in numerous choirs, playing ukulele, steel pans and samba drumming !
Her main interests other than music are gardening and just enjoying the fresh air !
Players in the March 2010 concert.
On 11th July 2010 some of the "orchestra girls" did the "race for life" and raised £1673.80 for Cancer Research UK. Here are 'before' and 'after' photographs.
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