A community choir in the Mendip Hills
OUR CONDUCTOR
Katrine Reimers grew up in Taunton before studying music at King’s College, Cambridge, gaining a Master’s degree in Piano Accompaniment at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and completing her Professional Répétiteur Training at the National Opera Studio. As a pianist she has worked for companies such as The Royal Opera, English National Opera and Independent Opera, Sadler’s Wells. She has led choirs to national competition success (Wessex Male Choir, Gold Cup, Cheltenham International Choral Festival 2016) and has run singing groups in schools, prisons, offices, festivals and most other places you can think of!
Katrine’s biggest singing project to date involved conducting over 3,000 singers in a massed choir performance at the Alta Pustería International Choral Festival in Italy 2016. She has musically directed community opera in East London (Vision Opera), run ‘Come and Sing’ days on major classical choral works, (WOWFest, Lewisham Choral Society, Vivace, Bath Choral Society), headed recording studio and film projects with youth choirs (École de Wix, Voices for Life), led classical music study weekends for singers and instrumentalists (Dorset Bach Cantata Club), run workshops for the education departments of most of the leading London opera companies, directed Mozart opera from the harpsichord (Idomeneo, Hampstead Garden Opera) and even had a stab at stage direction (Hampstead Garden Opera, Alcina). Her work has also encompassed leading workshops with disabled young people as well as adapting classical works for performances by disabled youth orchestras across the country (OpenUp).
Katrine does a lot of music education work in an international setting, running choirs for the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle and assisting with major concerts for E.I.F.A., London. She has headed large-scale performances of massed children’s choirs at venues such at the Cadogan Hall and the Ciné Lumière, collaborating with international names such as Oscar-winning composer Michel Legrand and Claude-Michel Schönberg, composer of smash-hit musical Les Misérables. She runs regular singing workshops in local primary schools for Voices For Life, promoting children’s wellbeing and sustainable communities through music.
As well as directing Priddy Singers, Katrine is MD of Bath Choral Society and Director of Music at S. Mark’s, Swindon. She is committed to nurturing and developing the voice and musicianship of every individual without pressure or stress, regardless of their level of singing experience and skill. She also likes to think she’s pretty good fun and aims to make sure everyone has a good time in rehearsals. She lives in Bath and relishes her work with this wonderful community high up in the Mendip Hills.