About the Founder and Artistic Director

I grew up in West Clandon, since my parents moved there when I was just a few months old. Music played a big part in family life and, growing up, I was always singing around the house. In a bid to preserve their hearing, however, my parents packed my bags and sent me off to boarding school when I was 10, where I sang in the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge. From St John’s, I continued to sing at the Royal College of Music Junior Department, was the inaugural Choral Scholar at St Martin’s Church, Dorking, and was a Choral Scholar at Wells Cathedral (this time singing eight services a week!) and then at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where I read Music.

When I was 23 I met my current teacher, who suggested I turn my attention to opera, and I headed up north to study with him at the Royal Northern College of Music for three years. I now work as a freelance opera singer, singing in choruses and understudying roles. In the UK, my work has taken me to Opera North, Glyndebourne and Grange Park in Horsley, and abroad I have worked in Lyon, Strasbourg and Antwerp.

Travelling around the UK and Europe can be immensely fun, but living out of a suitcase often raises questions of belonging, asking myself why I am driven to leave those closest to me to make music, understanding different cultural perspectives, and the importance of being part of a community. I hence founded Clandon Music Festival as an exploration of what I find meaningful in my life as a singer.

Stephen Fort - Artistic Director