Artistic Director of NCS – Angela Kay MBE
Founder and Artistic Advisor, Music for Everyone
Freelance conductor and accompanist

Angela Kay studied at Nottingham College of Education, now Nottingham Trent University, and has been involved with the choral life of Nottinghamshire for most of her professional life. After giving up her post as head of music at a comprehensive school in 1980 to raise a family, Angela founded the Nottingham Choral Trust (now Music for Everyone) and continued to develop it by working with enthusiasm and imagination as its Artistic Director.

In 2022, she retired from some of her roles to become the Creative Advisor of MfE but continues as Music Director and conductor of Nottingham Chamber Singers and accompanist of West Bridgford Daytime Voices. Angela also conducts the Palace Singers in Newark.

Originally known in Nottingham as a mezzo soprano soloist, Angela’s career developed first into choral and then into orchestral conducting. She has conducted many of the major works from the choral repertoire to critical acclaim, including Brahms’ Requiem, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Verdi’s Requiem and Bach’s St Matthew Passion. In July 2003, Angela received an honorary Masters degree from Nottingham Trent University in recognition of her services to Music Education.

Angela received an MBE in the 2014 New Year Honours list for services to music in Nottinghamshire and in 2015 was awarded the Lady Hilary Groves Prize by the national music organisation, Making Music. This prize is awarded to one individual each year for their outstanding contribution to music making in their local community.

Assistant Director of NCS – Rachel Parkes
Artistic Director, Music for Everyone

Rachel was a founding member of the internationally successful a-cappella ensemble Voces8 with whom she performed and toured extensively. As an active member of the London choral scene for 10 years, she performed at the highest level with Tenebrae, London Voices and the Eric Whitacre Singers. Her repertoire ranges from the classical tradition to Hollywood movie scores, contemporary opera, and classical-pop crossover.

Following five years working in the USA as a soloist, choral singer, vocal coach and singing teacher, Rachel moved to Nottingham in 2020. Since then, she has been committed to empowering people and communities to sing. In addition to her work training the University of Nottingham’s choirs, she is a conductor of the auditioned Nottingham Chamber Singers and chorus master of the Nottingham Festival Chorus.

As Artistic Director of the charity Music for Everyone, she runs several weekly choirs in the Nottingham area, weekend music courses for adults and children, Come-and-Sing concerts and community events. She also runs music groups in public libraries for Inspire, and singing initiatives for health and wellbeing.

Accompanist – Richard Cox
Freelance pianist

Local pianist Richard Cox has worked in the Nottingham area and beyond for many years, accompanying numerous soloists and ensembles. He studied music at the University of Nottingham specialising in piano performance with Brenda May, and began working with community organisations after graduating, initially through Music for Everyone (then known as the Nottingham Choral Trust).

He now spends the majority of his time running music-related businesses, including Europadisc (selling recordings of classical music to collectors around the world), and local woodwind specialist, Windblowers.