Toby Ward collaborates with Petros Singers as a singing teacher, providing vocal coaching to individual choir members, leading warm-ups and advising on vocal practice. Choir members can arrange individual lessons on an occasional basis with Toby which are held during rehearsals in a separate room adjacent to our main rehearsal space. Our bursary members are offered one free lesson with him each term.
Toby read music at King’s College, Cambridge with particular focus on early music and continuo alongside a tenor choral scholarship in King’s College Choir under Sir Stephen Cleobury, with whom he toured internationally and performed on BBC radio and television with major solos on the annual Carols from King’s programme. Postgraduate studies in singing at the Royal College of Music followed prior to the pandemic, alongside studies in conducting with Paul Brough. He is also an associate of the Royal College of Organists, and held the post of organist at the National Musicians’ Church from 2019–22.
He founded Ensemble Pro Victoria whilst at Cambridge in 2015 to pursue his interests in early music, and the ensemble began recording with Delphian Records in 2021 after winning the London International Early Music Festival Young Ensemble Competition. His six recordings on Delphian have all been critically acclaimed, winning a Gramophone nomination, Critics’ Choice, and numerous five-star ratings from the BBC Music Magazine.
Current posts in addition to Ensemble Pro Victoria include Praefectus Cantorum of the Grand Priory of England, and a regular member of choirs Ex Cathedra and Contrapunctus. Toby also works in Florence as part of Mascarade Opera’s Sacred Music Project (the Ensemble Vox Medicea), uncovering and performing the music commissioned by the Medici family during the Italian Renaissance.
He has conducted Ensemble Pro Victoria on BBC Radio 3 numerous times, and recently curated and conducted an Advent Calendar for BBC Radio 3 with the BBC Singers.
Known also for inspiring and developing choristers and young singers, Toby has taught the boy choristers of Durham Cathedral, Newcastle Cathedral and Westminster Abbey alongside work as a workshop leader for the Tenebrae schools programme, occasional work with London Youth Choir, and a happy spell as acting director of the York Chapter House Youth Choir.