Hornsea Music Society is delighted to welcome its new President, Marilynne Davies. Many Hornsea people will know Marilynne from the Hornsea Festival, where she is an enthusiastic and motivating adjudicator, always making constructive and helpful comments. Recently, she has ended the Festival by conducting a community rendition of Jerusalem, emphasising the joy of making music together..
Marilynne is well established as an adjudicator member of the British and International Federation of Festivals, and has adjudicated nationally and internationally. She was one of the four music adjudicators at the British Federation Festival of Festivals in Warwick and one of the presenters at the Millennium Festival in Leeds. She has been a regular adjudicator at the National Festival for Music for Youth and at the biennial Yorkshire and Humberside Championship for Festival winners. In October 2011 she was honoured to be made one of the first Adjudicator Fellows of the Federation and is now Chairman of the Fellows.
The promotion of the arts particularly Music has been a lifelong interest and she was Chairman of the Yorkshire Region of the National Federation of Music Societies for many years. She served on the committee of both the Harrogate Concert Society and the Grantley Hall Concert Society and until recently she was on the Council of the Association of British Choral Directors and Chairman of the Yorkshire Regional Committee. She is currently president of the Harrogate Male Voice Choir
From her early experiences of performing in Welsh Eisteddfodau Marilynne has developed a lifelong passion and enthusiasm for all aspects of performance. She studied piano, voice and cello at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and took a Masters Degree in Education and became Head of the School of Performance at York St John University.
As a conductor, she has trained and conducted orchestras and choirs on a regular basis, some of whom have performed on national TV. Her choirs range in size from 1100 school children to a chamber choir of 40 voices, with whom she toured abroad on many occasions. Currently she is Deputy Music Director of the 140+ Harrogate Choral Society, director of the Harrogate Polyphonic Choir and of a small vocal ensemble”Beati”.
Her own performing experience has included singing with professional orchestras and choirs, including solo recitals and solo parts in opera. She now has a practice as a vocal and choral consultant.
When not involved in music making she enjoys playing social Bridge, collecting English enamel patch boxes and walking.
The Society’s Chairman, Roberta Loades said “We are absolutely thrilled that Marilynne agreed to be our President. We have given a lot of thought into the process of finding a successor to the late Lord Brian Rix. It is really quite difficult to think of appropriate people who have a local connection. We all thought Marilynne would be ideal, but we assumed she would be too busy. When I was assisting Marilynne during the Festival, I took the opportunity to ask her if she would consider being our president, and she accepted straight away.”
Marilynne loves coming to Hornsea, and intends to be an active president.
