Music

A four generation line of church organists, and two decades of supporting worship in church, have shaped both Nicholas's musicianship and his understanding of music's purpose and potential. He holds the diploma of Colleague of the Royal College of Organists, along with ABRSM qualifications for Piano and Viola, and is working towards the Associate diploma. He currently supports his local church of St Petroc's, Harford as his primary posting, even keeping music alive there through the pandemic by adapting to use an accordion outside. He has previously supported Taizé services with Churches Together in Ivybridge, and prior to that has played in churches across many counties and denominations.

As an ensemble musician, Nicholas has led the viola sections of multiple amateur orchestras and has sung bass in choirs for a wide range of major choral works. His focus has more recently shifted to composing and conducting, most recently directing his own Passion for a Good Friday service, written for full choir, organ and narrator, to a packed church. As a composer, Nicholas works in the liturgical tradition drawing on baroque counterpoint, folk melody, and the natural world for inspiration. His works to date include a five-movement partita, the Good Friday Passion, and an ongoing Sung Eucharist setting. A project to compose a voluntary for every week of the year is underway, including a fugue on the folk melody "Now is the Month of Maying".

Folk music, drawn from other areas of his life, informs much of his work, as does the intriguingly blurred boundary between it and liturgical music. Nicholas enjoys discovering how the Dartmoor folk tradition, and sea shanties from around the coast, can be developed into new music for use in church.

In all of this, Nicholas seeks primarily to enable; to create an environment in which people can experience music and spirituality on their own terms, in a way in which they are comfortable. A good organ bench is one that is hidden from view.