Stephen Petch is an accomplished professional tenor and musical director who took over as MD of the Rushmoor “Odd Fellows” Male Voice Choir in 2001 after being a singer with the choir since 1997.
Stephen’s formal voice training began with D’Oyly Carte opera company tenor Edwin Rolles in 1983. During a six-year period he won over thirty first prizes in competitive vocal festivals, including the Festival Champion award at the Bournemouth Music Festival and the Four Voices Solo competition at the Welsh National Eisteddfod. Stephen now works with the Swiss tenor Lars Fischer, Crompton Scholar from the London Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Singing in the genres of Opera, Italian and Neapolitan Song and Classical Crossover, Stephen has performed as a professional tenor in Germany, Canada, Austria and New Zealand as well as in the UK.
Biography
Stephen is a Member of the Association of British Choral Directors and, as well as being The Odds MD, is musical director of Kindred Spirits (a choir solely for breast cancer sufferers and survivors). He was founding musical director of the Aldershot Military Wives’ Choir and the Hampshire & Surrey NHS Choir. He has also served as musical director of Crondall Community Choir and Alton Choral Society. Stephen has been Deputy Festival Director for the South Coast Festival of Male Voices and Guest Conductor of the Croydon Festival of Male Voices. In 2014 he was vocal director for the Wind Tunnel Project, an audio-visual exhibition within the old RAE’s 24 foot wind tunnel in the run-up to the Farnborough Air Show.
