Ken Burton Director, London Adventist Chorale
Sopranos Rachael Brown Yasmina H Solé (Burton) Fifi Mckenzie-Cook Roxane Digman Nkomo Meklit Negussie Chimaine Sampson Marlene Skerritt Carina Stewart-Pryce Altos Geanina Cucu Gemma Cudjoe Virginie Oculi-Dinal Andrea Philip Joan Saddler Louanne Sampson Tenors Roderick Adams Robert Carr Reuel Jones Elias Kalumba Keith Kirk Denzle McDonald Paul Weekes Basses Benjamin Béloni Arnold Best David Grant André Jones Alex Nsimbi Duane Wright
Ken Burton’s international musical activities cover a wide range of genres and roles. He regularly directs two choirs – the London Adventist Chorale and the Croydon SDA Gospel Choir, and following the latter’s involvement in several BBC Songs of Praise performances founded the session broadcast choir The Adventist Vocal Ensemble, out of which came a quartet, Tessera, which he founded and sings with regularly on Songs of Praise. Ken has several of his choral works published by Faber Music, Oxford University Press and the Royal School of Church Music, and he is a regular adjudicator for ‘Choir of the Year’ – the very competition where, in 1994, he had his two regular choirs in the same final, the London Adventist Chorale winning. He was also one of the judges for Channel 4’s ‘Gospel Singer of the Year’. Ken has contributed to ITV’s The X Factor as a vocal contractor, session singer and choral arranger, for contestants and special guests including Beyoncé, will.i.am, Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams and Rihanna. He also has a strong background in classical music and has worked as a chorusmaster training choirs in large-scale works such as Verdi’s Requiem and Brahms’s German Requiem. He has conducted, composed and arranged choral and orchestral works for orchestras including the London Mozart Players, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Swan, and various BBC orchestras. In 2006 he conducted the 60th annual performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington DC. He was recently a guest on the BBC’s ‘Proms Plus’, introducing a concert that included Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. In addition to his regular performance-based activities, Ken is also involved with the Kijani Kenya Trust: a UKbased charity that raises funds for HIV and conservation projects in Kenya. In 2012 he worked as a vocal coach for the UK charity Youth Music’s Cultural Olympiad choir, Youth Music Voices, who performed at venues including WOMAD and the Royal Opera House.
London Philharmonic Orchestra | 7