The Musical Team

The musical team consists of:

• Rodney T Jones as Director of Music
• Rodger Stephens our talented accompanist
• Hannah Barton as the Deputy Director of Music

Biography for Rodney T Jones

Rodney was born in 1957 in St Asaph and has always lived in beautiful North Wales. His musical endeavours started when he was a young lad in his local church choir and continued in High School where he sang in the school choir and performed in school performances of ‘Oliver’ and ‘HMS Pinafore’ under the musical directorship of Rhys Jones.

In April 1979 Rodney was invited to go to a rehearsal of the Colwyn Bay Male Voice Choir (Côr Meibion Colwyn) and was immediately ‘hooked’. Under the inspirational conductorship of Neville Owen, Rodney became a first tenor in the ‘one hundred plus’ strong choir. The choir was at the top of its game and went on to win many competitions over the next few years, including the Chief Male Voice Choir competition at the 1979 National Eisteddfod in Caernarfon and the top Male Voice prize at the prestigious Cork International Music Festival. In 1982 Neville Owen retired as their conductor and the choir started to dwindle. The twice weekly journey was becoming more and more impractical for Rodney and in 1983 he decided to join the Flint Male Voice Choir.

Once again Rodney sang as a first tenor, this time under the baton of John Stone. In April 1986 John relocated to a new teaching post in Scotland and resigned as Musical Director. Having been learning to read and interpret music, and harbouring a secret desire to conduct, Rodney decided to apply for the job and, to his surprise, got it on a six-month trial. His first concert was on FA Cup Final day (10th May) 1986 in Buckley Elfed High School, and his second engagement was conducting the choir in the Male Voice Choir competition at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, where they came a very creditable eighth from a field of over twenty choirs: the committee decided to end his trial period immediately and he was appointed as their Musical Director. Rodney went from strength to strength in his position and led the choir to victories in many competitions including twice winning the Male Voice Choir section at the National Eisteddfod of Wales (1989 & 1991) and a treasured third place at Llangollen (1993). Other important events included tours to the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, France (four times), Brittany (three times), Ireland and Malta. On four occasions Rodney conducted the choir and hundreds of other Celtic musicians in front of a capacity audience of over 85,000 at the Stade De France in Paris; what a thrill!

In 1991 Rodney became Musical Director of The Chester Ladies’ Choir and has taken them from strength to strength. They are now almost seventy voices strong, have an enviable reputation, and have won many first prizes at competitive festivals throughout the UK. They have also undertaken very successful tours of Cornwall (three times) and in 1999 went on a week-long tour of Malta and its smaller sister island of Gozo which was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for all concerned.

Rodney conducted the Flint Male Voice Choir for three months short of twenty years until leaving in December 2005. In January 2006, he became the Director of Music of The City of Chester Male Voice Choir and has worked on developing their sound, musicianship and repertoire. He looks forward to many more happy years with both choirs.

In his all too infrequent spare time Rodney enjoys foreign travel - especially to the Far East and Australia where he has had the pleasure of taking choral ‘master classes’ with choirs in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide: surely a ‘bus-mans holiday’!

Biography for Roger Stephens - Accompanist

Roger was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, in 1956, but grew up in the Cheshire countryside. After leaving school he studied music at Sheffield University, where he won the ‘Philip John Lord Prize’ for composition before going on to study with the well known Welsh composer, Alun Hoddinot, at the University of Wales.

Roger still composes but is better known as a piano accompanist. In his twenty plus years of experience he has worked with solo singers and instrumentalists; choirs; Opera Wirral and The Liverpool Metropolitan Opera. The Chester Ladies’ Choir were fortunate enough to secure his services as their accompanist in May 2000.

Roger is a talented author, artist and illustrator; specialising in local history and wildlife. His first book ‘The Boom of the Bitterbump’ is about the folk history of Cheshire’s wildlife and his second book ‘The Warncliffe Companion to Chester’ is an historical guide to his adopted city.

Rodger is also one of Chester’s ‘Green Badge Guides’ and he is fluent in Russian; this makes him one of only two Russian speaking guides in the North West. He has a vast knowledge of all aspects of the city of Chester and is obviously the ‘first choice guide’ for any Russian visitors (as well as many other nationalities) to the city.