As a choir we have total trust in our conductor's thoughts and thus we have let him write his own biographical notes and select "recent" photographs. We leave it to you to pass judgment.
The choir's accompanist is Anne Robertson and click here to read here biography.
| Martin Speller has been actively engaged in choral music since he was six years old. He has had varied and extensive experience as a member of church choirs, choral societies, the Elphinstone Consort in Aberdeen, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, the Perth Festival Chorus and the Scottish Chorus. |  |
He studied singing with Reinhold Gerhardt at the Guildhall School of Music in London, with James Reid in Aberdeen and with Patricia MacMahon in Glasgow. Since leaving Aberdeen in 1983 to live in Helensburgh, he sang with the John Currie Singers until the group's ending with John Currie's retirement.
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As a soloist he has appeared in oratorio and opera, and has broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland. He has given several solo recitals in Aberdeen, Helensburgh and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with programmes centred on the music of Fauré and Schumann but also introducing what was at the time comparatively unknown repertoire in English song. |
In 1993, he was appointed the conductor of the Helensburgh Oratorio Choir, fulfilling a long-held ambition to direct a choir. The duties associated with this appointment now make up the major part of his musical activities.
With essentially no formal training in music, his only saving grace is
that he understands that the role of the conductor is start things off,
bring things to a close and to leave the musicians and singers alone in
between times. By employing wonderful professional orchestral players
and superb soloists, and by relying on the commitment of the choir members
to teach themselves the music, the trick has worked so far - although
perhaps the local critic has rumbled him - but the moment of truth must
surely soon be at hand. Balanced against that are firstly his propensity
to talk too much and secondly his tendency to get over-enthusiastic about
the music currently being performed. In fact, he tends to regard whatever
piece of music being performed at the time to be the greatest work not
written by Bach, unless, of course, it is by Bach, in which case it has
to be ranked against the B Minor Mass and Cantata 106. He has exploited
the scarcity of tenors shamelessly despite the fact that his wife prefers
basses: in fact it is only when his voice has dropped an octave and he
can barely speak that she thinks he is worth listening to. These moments
are, however, rare. A staggeringly unexciting person, he has no particular
interests outside of music although he does enjoy taking photographs that
no-one else wants to look at. A family slide-show is the children's favourite
pastime, as they have often been told.
Anne is originally from West Yorkshire and first came to Scotland to study piano and violin at the RSAMD in Glasgow, graduating in 1987 with a BA in Music Performance. She then worked as a ballet pianist for Scottish Ballet's "Steps Out" company and for The Dance School of Scotland in Knightswood, Glasgow. A keen linguist, Anne later returned to studying at Glasgow University, gaining an MA joint honours degree in French and German in 1997. She is currently director of "The Piano School Ltd." in the west-end of Glasgow, which offers piano tuition at all age groups from beginner to diploma level and works as a freelance accompanist to various singers and instrumentalists. She is an official accompanist in the annual Glasgow Music Festival and has been with the Oratorio Choir since 2004. She can be contact by email through this link Anne Robertson.
