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Philip Drew is a composer, organist, counter-tenor, singing teacher and choral conductor living in Portsmouth, UK. He is also Diocesan Organs Adviser for Portsmouth Diocese and an Organ Adviser for the Methodist Church in London and the South East.

The listing of Organs in Portsmouth Diocese (in the manner of listed buildings) is now available on this site on the Organs of Portsmouth Diocese page.

See some of his compositions

here

NEWS of PERFORMANCES

I have recently given lunch time organ recitals in the Cathedral Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Portsmouth in the Lunch Time Live series on Thursday 6th May (Works by Clérambault, Tomkins, D.Scarlatti, Stanley, Andriessen and Boëllmann together with my own piece Halo) and at Marlborough Rd. Methodist Church in St Alban's, Hertfordshire on Tuesday 6th July.

My Jigsaw Piece 1 - Ave Maria received its first performance from the Solent Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Steve Tanner, in their concert at St Agatha's Church, Market Way, Portsmouth on Saturday 3rd October 2009.

The piece is inspired by the artworks of Ian Skoyles who created pictures by combining different Jigsaws to produce composite images which distorted normal ways of viewing scenes. My piece uses bars of Bach's Prelude in C from the 1st book of the 48 and the plainsong melody Ave Maria in similarly dis-jointed ways.

Portsmouth District Composers' Alliance presented a concert of choral and organ music at St Mary's Church, Alverstoke on Saturday 14th November at 7:30pm given by Wyndcliffe Voices with Paul Pilott (Organ). The programme included choral works by PDCA Members Alun Grafton, Geoffrey Dale, David Penri-Evans, Paul Pilott, Michael Lawlor, Philip Pennington-Harris and myself.

See Wyndcliffe Voices page for details of programme.

My Trois poèmes de Verlaine for soprano and guitar was given its first performance on Saturday 13th June 2009 in a concert given by
TRIO DUMESNIL-SIROIS
[Nathalie Dumesnil (soprano) and André and Monique Sirois (guitarists)] in
FECAMP, Normandy.
The piece is dedicated to Nathalie Dumensil who is married to composer Dominique Lemaitre [PDCA member].

Holy Spirit Church

Building work begins on Monday 1st March. For the next few months services will be held in the south aisle and access to the church will be in Heyward Road, Southsea the Fawcett Road entrance will be part of the contractor's site. There will be no Choral Evensongs until February 2011 and throughout the duration of the work, events may have to be be changed at short notice.

See the Holy Spirit Church page for details of services.

Cantores Vagantes This year we visit Portsmouth Cathedral 17th and 18th April and Carlisle Cathedral 2nd to 8th August. Go to this page for music list and comments on Cathedrals and Pubs.

Wyndcliffe Voices next performance is at St Peter's, Northney, Hayling Island on Saturday 11th September at 7pm.
A concert in celebration and commemoration of those who lost their lives in the Twin Towers.

Philip G. Drew

023 9283 0995 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 023 9283 0995 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 023 9283 0995 end_of_the_skype_highlighting

17, Wyndcliffe Rd. Southsea. Hampshire. UK. PO4 0LA

philip.drew@mypostoffice.co.uk

I have added several short piano pieces which are comparitively easy to play to the Sibelius Music website available for free.

Halo, a solo organ piece composed using spectralist techniques in 2009, was given its first performance by Mark Wardell (Assistant Organist at Chichester Cathedral) at St Mary's Alverstoke, Hampshire on Saturday 16th May 2009.

Portsmouth District Composers' Alliance presented a concert at All Saints' Church, Steep, nr Petersfield, Hampshire on Saturday 27th June at 7:30pm of settings of poetry by Edward Thomas. This concert was a re-run of the Alliance's first concert in June 1989.
I sang my own 'Collection of Birds' settings of Thomas's poems Two Peewits, The Owl and Adlestrop accompanied by Catherine Nicholson (Flute), Kate Redwood (Cello) and Karen Kingsley (Piano), and David Penri-Evans' setting of The Trumpet accompanied by Sam Moffat (Trumpet) and Karen Kingsley (Piano). My Two Thomas Hardy Songs (She at his funeral and His Immortality) were also performed by Marlene Purdy (Soprano) with piano accompaniment by yours truly.

Cantores Vagantes sang my Paschal Anthem at Sunday Evensong in Portsmouth Cathedral on 18th April 2010 and last year sang my 'Missa Sancti Matthaei Apostoli' in Bristol Cathedral in August and my First set of Preces and Responses in St Woolos Cathedral, Newport in April.

Welcome!

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