Marcus Wibberley - return to the 2023/2024 Season or Welcome
Programme
Grand March (from Aida) - Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 - JS Bach (1685-1750)
Prelude & Fugue in F minor, BWV 534 - JS Bach (1685-1750)
Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 - JS Bach (1685-1750)
Consolation in D flat, S.172 - Franz Liszt (1811-86)
Prélude (Trois Pièces, Op. 29/1 - Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937)
Variations “Ut queant laxis” (from Sinfonia in honore Sancti Ioannis Baptistæ) - Naji Hakim (b.1955)
Suite Carmelite - Jean Françaix (1912-97)
- i. Sœur Blanche
- Mère Marie de l’incarnation
- Sœur Anne de la Croix
- Sœur Constance
- Sœur Mathilde
- Mère Marie de Saint-Augustin
Chant de Paix - Jean Langlais (1907-91)
Toccata (Symphony No 5, Op. 42/1) - Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)
Biography
Marcus Wibberley is a south Londoner who is active as an organist, conductor, consultant and tour agent. As a boy, he was a Chorister of Westminster Abbey under Martin Neary. He studied at Dulwich College, where he was a Music Scholar and additionally the first Organ Scholar of the newly re-established historic Chapel Choir Foundation at the College, and the University of Hull, where he was University Organ Scholar, graduating with first class honours in Music. His organ teachers included Martin Baker, John Scott Whiteley and David Sanger, and he held organ scholarships at Chichester Cathedral, Beverley Minster (while a student in Hull) and latterly York Minster before becoming Sub-Organist of Portsmouth Cathedral and the Diocesan Music Adviser for The Diocese of Portsmouth in 2005. As Diocesan Music Adviser, he ran pioneering schemes to provide free organ tuition for school children and adult parish organists throughout the diocese, and introduced singing and church music to school children and their teachers. As Cathedral Sub-Organist, he accompanied the Cathedral Choir on a number of foreign tours and highly acclaimed BBC broadcasts and CD recordings.
In 2011 he was appointed Director of Music & Organist of Hexham Abbey, where his responsibilities included training and directing the Abbey Choirs. In addition to the four weekly choral services at the Abbey, he appeared with the choir in concert elsewhere in the UK and in Germany, Belgium and Estonia. He was also Festival Director of the annual Hexham Abbey Festival of Music & Arts, for which he developed the scope of the programme and secured majority funding from the Arts Council of England.
In 2017, Marcus returned to south London and has been active in church music and the central London concert scene. He has worked at St John’s Smith Square, St George’s Beckenham and St Dunstan’s College, and has directed the South London Singers, the St George’s Chamber Orchestra and the Chameleon Arts Orchestra. In August 2018 he served on the faculty of the RSCM Nigeria National Summer Course and Conference in Lagos, and in 2019 he took the choir of St George’s Beckenham to The Vatican to sing Mass at St Peter’s Cathedral.
Marcus is in demand as a recitalist, and has travelled extensively. Solo recitals have been given in prominent venues in Japan, Nigeria, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Estonia, as well as most of the major cathedrals and abbeys in the UK.