Musical Director

Dr William Reynolds

Dr William Reynolds was appointed Musical Director of the Gower Chorale in January 2016 and has enjoyed conducting them for a wide-ranging repertoire, including works by Bach, Britten, Elgar, Fauré, Handel, Haydn, Mathias, Mozart, Parry, Rossini, Vaughan Williams, and Zelenka.

William is also Organist & Director of Music at St Mary's, Swansea, around which he maintains a busy portfolio as a freelance musician pursuing a wide range of activity

including organ and harpsichord performance, choral conducting, editorial musicology, arts consultancy, and he teaches singing at Swansea University. In 2020 William was appointed Regional Manager (Wales) for the Royal School of Church Music.

William studied music at University of Wales, Bangor, where he gained the degrees of BMus, MA and PhD (his doctoral research surveyed Music and Liturgy in Wales and the Borderlands, c.1485-e.1642). He has had some of his research published in the Journal of the Royal College of Organists, the Journal of the British Institute of Organ Studies, and Welsh Music History, with Cathedral Press publishing some of his performing editions of seventeenth-century anthems. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and holds performance diplomas from Trinity College of Music, London, and the Royal Schools of Music. Before moving to Swansea he worked as a tutor in the School of Continuing Education at University of Wales, Bangor, as a lecturer at Coleg Menai, was Organist at Christ College, Brecon, Sub-Organist at Cardiff Metropolitan Cathedral, and Organ Scholar at Bangor Cathedral. His organ teachers have included Andrew Goodwin, Huw Tregelles Williams and Jane Watts.

He has appeared on radio and television as a choral conductor and organist, has recorded as an organ accompanist on the SAIN label, and has performed in France (including Notre Dame, Paris), Belgium and Malta, and has twice given solo organ recital tours to Italy (2009 and 2016). In 2012 William participated in an international organ masterclass week at the Prins Claus Conservatoire in Groningen, Holland, with the privilege of playing numerous organs dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in 2019 attended the Royal College of Organists study tour to Paris and played many notable organs including those at La Trinité and Saint Sulpice.

In 2012 he was presented with The Archbishop of Wales' Award for Church Music and in October 2023 was presented with Honorary Membership of the Royal School of Church Music at Chester CAthedral in recognition of his work for the RSCM and his contribution to church music.