Dr. Roy Wales

Roy Wales is well known in Rottingdean for creating and directing the annual Spring Music Festival in March and also Rottingdean Arts that promotes various musical events on the Terraces Stage and in other village venues throughout the year. Roy Wales has directed more than 30 music and arts festivals in the past.

His career has covered more than fifty years of extensive international experience as a conductor and in educational and arts management. He has been County Director of Music for Essex and East Sussex County Councils and has spent twenty years in universities and conservatoires, including being Director of Music at the University of Warwick, Director of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Brisbane, Australia) and Professor and Head of the Birmingham Conservatoire.

He gained his doctorate in music from the University of Washington where he was a Fulbright Scholar and he also has an MA in Arts Management from the City University, London. Early in his career he sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with the English National Opera and for the BBC. He has been a guest conductor with many orchestras and choirs including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers.

He is currently Music Director of the English Concert Orchestra, English Concert Singers and Chorus and The London Chorale. He has lived in Rottingdean for twenty-five years.