Musical Director
Conducting, keyboard performance and teaching have formed the backbone of Sarah Baldock’s career since leaving Cambridge, where she was Organ Scholar at Pembroke College.
Although her musical training focused on orchestral playing and chamber music as a Music Scholar in violin and piano at St Paul’s Girls’ School, an unexpected journey in Cathedral music began at the age of 23 when she was appointed founder Director of the Girls’ Choir at Winchester Cathedral.
Sarah worked with the Girl Choristers for ten years, learning much from David Hill, Hilary Llystyn Jones and Stephen Farr. During this time the Girls’ Choir became a much loved and respected ensemble, both in their regular service singing with the Cathedral Lay Clerks, and further afield through their broadcasts, recordings and concerts.
In 2002, she was appointed Assistant Director of Music to Andrew Lumsden, accompanying the Winchester Cathedral boys and men in daily services, recordings, broadcasts and international tours, and playing for the Waynflete Singers.
From 2008-2014 Sarah was Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral, during which time she directed two ‘home’ Southern Cathedrals Festivals with the combined choirs of Chichester, Winchester and Salisbury. She made a second solo organ CD and several recordings with the Choir, which also broadcast regularly on Radio 3.
The Cathedral Choir also gave concerts in the Chichester Festivities and at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and toured Ravenna, Bamberg, Bayreuth and Berlin.
As a choral conductor, Sarah continues to contribute to the work of the RSCM and other groups in the UK and abroad: she has worked over several years as Director of the Girl Chorister Course at St Thomas Fifth Avenue New York, and with choirs in Lexington Kentucky, Norway and Sweden.
Sarah is a former prizewinner at organ competitions in Dallas and Odense, and giving organ concerts has remained a strong focus. As a soloist, she has toured Denmark, America and Germany and continues to enjoy recital work, concerto opportunities and choral accompaniment: recently she has played for the BBC Singers and Concert Orchestra in two live broadcasts, and given lunchtime con-certs at Leeds and Birmingham Town Halls.
Sarah enjoys collaborative work and premièred David Owen Norris’ HengeMusic for saxophone quartet and organ. She initiated a project with artist Sophie Hacker exploring the interconnection of musical, visual and spiritual facets of Messiaen’s La Nativité which led to a book entitled Icons of the Incarnation, and an exhibition which toured the UK.
From September 2022, Sarah took up the prestigious post of Director of Music at Winchester College.