Lloyd has extensive experience as a choral conductor. For 10 years, he conducted a small ‘a capella’ choir near Bristol, and conducted the Wrington Vale Choral Society before moving to London to study at RCM, at which time he arranged and conducted a number of concerts with other students. He is currently conductor of the Barnby Choir in Wilmslow, and has recently directed performances of Bruckner’s Mass in D Minor, Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass and Haydn’s ‘Creation’, which have been accompanied by Musica Nova. Equally at home directing smaller scale works, under Lloyd’s leadership the choir has also recently performed music by Byrd, Purcell and Rutter.
Since 2010, Lloyd has been the Musical Director of Ellesmere Port Music Society, whom he has conducted in performances of major works with the Wirral Philharmonic Orchestra, including the Verdi Requiem, A German Requiem by Brahms, and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. He has also directed the choir in performances which have been accompanied by the 18th Century Sinfonia, one of the North West’s leading period orchestras.
Lloyd is a great proponent of Robert D. Levin’s completion of Mozart’s Requiem, a work which he has conducted on multiple occasions. With Ellesmere Port Music Society, he directed a concert devoted entirely to the work; the first half of the concert featured what is believed to be the premiere of the Requiem in its manuscript form, that is, performing only what was written in Mozart’s own hand in his manuscripts. The second half of the concert featured the Requiem as completed by Robert D. Levin.
Lloyd has also given lectures, both in person and online, on this completion of the Mozart Requiem. He has also given choral workshops on the completion, most recently with the Reading Bach Choir. He has also given lectures on Robert Levin’s completion of Mozart’s Great C Minor Mass.
Lloyd owns a complete performance set of vocal scores and orchestral material for Robert Levin’s completion of the Mozart Requiem, which is available to hire upon request.
Lloyd’s approach to conducting
Lloyd particularly enjoys directing music of the Classical period, and has a particular love for the music of Mozart and Haydn. He likes to focus on works which have been somewhat neglected, for example:
There are fourteen masses by Haydn, of which only a handful get regular outings, chief amongst them being the ‘Nelson’ Mass. There is nothing inherently wrong with Haydn’s other mass settings, they are all wonderful pieces of music, full of discoveries waiting to be made, but for some reason, they do not get programmed. The music of Haydn should be a draw for an audience in its own right, so why not programme the Cäcilienmesse, and have the joy of singing one of the greatest fugues of the period!
On Mozart’s Requiem:
It is generally well known that Mozart died before completing his Requiem Mass, and that the work was finished in secret by Franz Xavier Süssmayr. What is not so well known is just how much of the work Mozart himself wrote. Süssmayr’s completion is what is now considered to be Mozart’s Requiem, but from a musical perspective, it is littered with problems. The musicologist and Mozart specialist, Robert D. Levin, has attempted to repair Süssmayr’s completion of the work, retaining the familiar, but correcting his musical mistakes to create a version which I believe is far more compelling and stylistically accurate than the version which we usually hear performed. This is therefore, the version that I prefer to direct.
Lloyd also enjoys conducting music of some lesser known composers, and memorably gave a rare performance of Charles Valentin Alkan’s ‘Funeral March for a Dead Parrott’ with Ellesmere Port Music Society. Whilst looking more more unusual Christmas music, He also obtained choral and orchestral music for Homilius’s Cantata ‘Ein hoher Tag kömmt’, which he performed with The Barnby Choir. Lloyd also enjoys renaissance polyphony, particularly the music of Portuguese composer Frei Manuel Cardoso.
In addition to some lesser known material, Lloyd believes that it is important to uphold the tradition of singing some of the great choral masterpieces:
There will always be a place in the choral repertoire for the great classics of Handel, Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Verdi, and many others. ‘Zadok the Priest, Bach’s Magnificat, Verdi’s Requiem; these are all fantastic pieces of music and warrent frequent performance. However, I do feel that as a conductor, it is my duty to introduce audiences to music that they may not have had the opportunity to hear before. This can include music written by the so called ‘Great Composers’, which has not gained the popularity of some of their best known work. In addition to the classics, those composers wrote plenty of other music; music which is often no less good, but for whatever reason, has not become popular mainstream. For example, Mendelssohn’s oratorio ‘Elijah’ is a mainstay of the repertoire. Mendelssohn also wrote an oratorio called ‘St Paul’. In it’s day, this was more popular than Elijah, so what happened? Often it sadly comes down to availability of copies. If the music is not available in the library, it does not get performed. Those copies that do exist are used less and less, and as they become harder to find in catalogues, they are removed from circulation. Audiences therefore do not get to hear the music and are unaware of its existence. There is therefore, little call for it to be performed.
Therefore, when I programme concerts, I like to try and mix some less familiar music, with the classics. This may be lesser known works of Parry or Mozart (‘Ode on the Nativity’ by Parry and ‘Thamos, King of Egypt’ by Mozart have both featured in my programming in recent years), or it may be by a composer who has been, in my opinion, unjustly neglected, hence the reason for music by Homilius and Alkan appearing in recent seasons.
Recent Performances
Bach: Cantata ‘Bringet dem Herrn’, March 2018
Mozart: Coronation Mass, March 2018
Lloyd Buck: Missa Fidelis, March 2018
Rutter: Magnificat, April 2018
Sullivan: Boer War Te Deum, April 2018
Haydn: ‘Nelson’ Mass, December 2018
Bach: Cantata ‘Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir’, December 2018
Homilius: ‘Ein hoher Tag kommt’, December 2018
Orff: Carmina Burana, March/April 2019
Chilcott: Little Jazz Mass, March 2019
Beethoven: Choral Fantasia, April 2019
Chilcott: Five Days that changed the World, May 2019
Lloyd Buck: The Returning Sea (world premiere), May 2019
Handel: Messiah (Mozart’s orchestration), December 2019
Handel: Messiah, December 2021
Haydn: Creation, March 2022
Lloyd Buck: Let the Music Sound! (world premiere), March 2022
Lloyd Buck: We Celebrate the Light (world premiere), April 2022
Vivaldi: Gloria (orchestration by Philip Norman – world premiere), April 2022
Mozart: Exsultate, jubilate, April 2022
Mendelssohn: ‘Hear my Prayer’, April 2022
Britten: Ceremony of Carols, December 2022
Bernstein: Chichester Psalms, December 2022
Chilcott: Songs and Cries of London Town, December 2022
Music by Whitacre, Gjeilo and Lauridson, December 2022
Mozart Requiem (Levin completion), January 2023
Haydn: ‘Nelson’ Mass, March 2023
Bruckner: Mass in D Minor, March 2023
Handel: Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, April 2023
Haydn: ‘St Nicholas’ Mass, April 2023
Selections of English Sacred Music, May 2023
Reviews
March, 2019: Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass:
We received much enthusiastic feedback:
“Absolutely fantastic, very tight and superbly conducted”
“Exhilarating! Huge sound, exciting stuff, magnificent choir…”
“The children were well disciplined and especially good joining in the Carmina Burana”
“A terrific concert and all credit to the choir – what a sing! Star of the evening was Lloyd. He has such passion and enthusiasm.”
“We thoroughly enjoyed the concert – one of Barnby’s best, I think. The choir’s diction and enthusiasm were impressive.”
June 2019: Music by John Rutter, Bob Chilcott and Ola Gjeilo:
music by John Rutter, Bob Chilcott, Ola Gjeilo, James MacMillan, Percy Whitlock and our very own Lloyd Buck! Audience feedback was extremely positive: the variety of works and styles in the programme was greatly enjoyed and there was a special commendation for Lloyd’s new work, The Returning Sea.
March 2022: Haydn’s ‘Creation’ in Bramhall
Our spring concert was held on Saturday 26 March in St Michael’s Church, Bramhall, and featured Haydn’s Creation as the main work, in which we were accompanied by Musica Nova, leader Anne Bass, with Graham Eccles on organ. As this was our first full concert since our 75th anniversary, which fell in the 2020/21 Season (sadly abandoned owing to COVID), we treated this as our anniversary concert and repeated Lloyd’s anthem Let the Music Sound!, specially written to celebrate our 75 years of singing. It was a wonderful occasion, with a large and enthusiastic audience, and we received many messages of congratulation.
Our soloists were most complimentary. Bass Edmund Danon wrote, “It was a great concert. I really enjoyed working with Lloyd and the team. I’d love to come and sing for you all again.” Tenor Guy Withers commented: “It was a wonderful evening. Such a pleasure. Bravo Lloyd on your new piece as well!” And soprano Ellie Neate added: “We all agreed that it was the MOST lovely gig! It was brilliant to sing with the choir and orchestra, and everyone was so welcoming…”.
Members of the audience were equally positive:
“It was ABSOLUTELY MARVELLOUS and I send my congratulations to all who took part.”
“We thoroughly enjoyed the concert last night, especially the world premiere of Let the Music Sound! Congratulations to Lloyd and Dave, and, of course, the choir.”