Our Choir
Meet our hard-working team of Overgate Hospice Choir chief committee officers and the talented musicians who lead our choir.
Choir Musicians
James Savage-Hanford
Music Director
James enjoys a varied career as a singer, musicologist, conductor, and teacher. He read Music at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (where he was a choral exhibitioner), and studied for a Masters and PhD in Musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Prior to doctoral study, he also undertook postgraduate training in vocal performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
As an ensemble singer, James has performed throughout the UK and across Europe with renowned groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the Armonico Consort, the BBC Singers, the English Concert, the Hanover Band and Sonoro, and in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Hall, St John’s Smith Square, the Aldeburgh Festival, the St Magnus Festival Kirkwall, the St Gallen Festival Switzerland, NOSPR Katowice, and the Philharmonie Essen.
As a concert soloist, James has performed much of the standard oratorio repertoire. Highlights include a performance of Mozart’s Requiem with the Brandenburg Sinfonia at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London; a programme of works by Monteverdi (including excerpts from the 1610 Vespers) and his contemporaries alongside the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble at Lancaster Priory; and Haydn’s The Creation at Southwell Minster. On the operatic stage, he made his international debut as Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra at the Birgitta Festival, Tallinn.
Increasingly in demand as a musical director, James has conducted Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea (in his own piano trio arrangement) and Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement in a double bill performance for Bute Park Opera, and has assisted on projects for the Cardiff-based Early Music ensemble Sforza, including as Chorus Master for a concert performance of Handel’s Semele.
In January 2023 he took over as Musical Director of Overgate Hospice Choir, and since September he has also been the MD of Cantores Olicanae, Ilkley. He is a former Musical Director of the Coleridge Choir (now fully amalgamated as part of Cambridgeshire Choral Society) and has worked with numerous youth and adult community choirs throughout Hertfordshire.
For more information, visit his website www.jamessavagehanford.com or follow him on Twitter @savagehanford.
Alan Horsey
Accompanist
Alan Horsey is the Accompanist to the Leeds Philharmonic Choir and the Overgate Hospice Choir in Halifax. He has enjoyed a long association with the Leeds Methodist Choir and the St Peter’s Singers of Leeds, the Sheffield Bach Society, Doncaster Choral Society and the Bradford Festival Choral Society. From 1996 until 2015 he was the Conductor of Ilkley and Otley Choral Societies.
As an orchestral organist and harpsichordist he has appeared with the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic, RLPO, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Airedale Symphony and the Manchester Camerata. He appears regularly with the Manchester Concert Orchestra specialising in celeste, synthesiser, piano and organ.
Alan is married to Elisabeth, a music teacher, and they have two children – Alice and Edward. Alan’s leisure interests include gardening and domestic poultry.
Chief Officers
Jeremy Whitaker
Chair
Jeremy was born and raised in the Calderdale village of Ripponden and educated at Triangle CE Primary School and Sowerby Bridge Grammar School. He joined the local church choir at the age of eight, later broadening his singing experience with the Royal School of Church Music ‘Northern Cathedral Singers’, first as a treble, then as their Head Chorister and finally as a bass before leaving to travel to Oxford to study Architecture, where he continued his singing.
Career life took him to London, working on projects such as Canary Wharf Tower and many other large UK commercial schemes. A second degree took him back to study in Oxford and in Melbourne, Australia.
Returning to the UK he worked as a freelance Architect, again in London, and achieved a further degree in Building Surveying. In 2012, after 25 years of big city life he moved to Suffolk where he spent 18 months renovating a Grade-Two Listed windmill complex, converting it into a successful 5-star Bed & Breakfast.
He moved again in 2019, heading back North, firstly to York followed by his return to Halifax where he now lives.
He is a keen gardener and plantsman. He also enjoys travel, cooking, theatre, fine wine, antiques and his retirement.
Jeremy joined Overgate Hospice Choir in 2021 as a ‘first bass’. He is very passionate about the work of the Choir and has worked enthusiastically to raise funds to help ensure that every penny of audience ticket sales at our concerts goes directly to Overgate Hospice.
“I believe that Overgate Hospice Choir has been going strong since 1991 because of a common love of music, the friendship and fun, and most importantly, the opportunity to sing for such a wonderful cause.”
Helen Proctor
Choir Secretary
Helen moved to Yorkshire 35 years ago after living in Durham, Dartmoor and Manchester. She is married to Dave and they live in Brighouse with their two West Highland Terriers.
Helen’s love of music began when she was at secondary school, singing in the school choir. Aged 12, she was encouraged by her music teacher to start theory lessons and subsequently began to learn to play the clarinet and later the piano. On leaving school, Helen started a teacher training degree at Bretton Hall College in Wakefield (now the home of Yorkshire Sculpture Park) where she studied music as her subject specialism. This provided the invaluable opportunity to continue to develop her performance skills as a clarinettist; playing in orchestras, bands, ensembles and also as a soloist.
On graduating in 1991, Helen embarked upon a successful career in teaching and over the next 33 years, she taught in primary schools in Barnsley, Sowerby Bridge and Brighouse. In 2004, Helen was appointed to the position of Headteacher at Bailiffe Bridge Primary School. This was a role that she loved and where she continued to work until taking early retirement in 2023. Throughout her teaching career, Helen continued to share her love of music with the children in her care. She led choirs, bands, performances and celebrations throughout the school year and always endeavoured to keep music ‘live’ by accompanying the children’s music making on the piano wherever possible.
Now happily retired, Helen’s interests include keeping fit, holidays in term-time, having time to play her clarinet again and walking her dogs. She also works as a volunteer for the NSPCC and The Maggie Oliver Foundation where she uses her transferable professional skills to support vulnerable young people.
Helen joined the Overgate Hospice Choir in 2024 where she sings alto. She enjoys the sense of wellbeing that comes from singing with this wonderful group of people and is proud of the work that they do to support Overgate Hospice.
Sue Rosborough
Treasurer
I joined Overgate Hospice Choir in 2013 and have undertaken the role of Treasurer since 2018. I’ve been a singer all my life and am a firm believer in the power of music to improve people’s lives. Our family are all singers – we know it’s good for us physically, mentally and socially. The Overgate singers are a friendly bunch, all joined through the common aim of raising funds for the Hospice through singing.
I formed Halifax Young Singers in 1992 and continued in the role of Administrator until 2013. During this time I saw the impact of group music-making on hundreds of young people, and took the choir to Aachen on several occasions, including a magical trip in 1999 when HYS represented Halifax when Tony Blair was awarded the Charlemagne Prize.
My first concert with Overgate Hospice Choir was Elijah and this took me back 30 years to 1983 when, as a student in Leeds, I performed Elijah with Simon Lindley as conductor.
Overgate Hospice holds a special place in my heart for the care it has given to friends who have spent their last days there, and to their families. The support and care provided is immeasurable. It is a privilege to sing for Overgate and to undertake the Treasurer’s role, sending as much financial support as we can to Overgate through our concerts. Naturally I encourage my family to help and our daughters are never shy in their role with collection buckets for Overgate funds at the end of concerts.
Judith Rowley
Membership Secretary
After I retired from careers in the Health Service and Voluntary Sector, I joined a Leeds based choir and my personal interest in music re-emerged. I had sung in a church choir as a youngster and I was exposed to music of all genres family-wise (my Father was a cellist as incidentally was my oldest daughter).
I was aware of the work of Overgate and in fact worked as a volunteer Receptionist in the evenings for a time. I was approached by a friend who was an Overgate Hospice Choir member and being aware of the funding situation of the Hospice movement, I felt I had to become involved to help the choir’s efforts and I joined in 2010.
It is a joy to sing together… the health benefits are now well-known… it is a joy to sing such varied music with similarly motivated people, and I feel proud to help the work of the Hospice.