Rachel Staunton - Musical Director

Rachel Staunton, formerly Rachel Coward, is Assistant Director of The National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and was Assistant Conductor to Mike Brewer with the NYCGB on their 2009 Tour of America. Rachel has the privilege of directing an eclectic mixture of ensembles including The New Foundling Children's Choir, Take Twenty Jazz Choir, and Harmony on Heels ladies choir.

Rachel has always had a passion for choirs since her early days as a chorister and then member of both The Berkshire Youth Choir and The NYCGB, which whom she toured and recorded extensively. As a Choral Scholar at Royal Holloway College, University of London, she gained a First Class Honours degree in music before taking up her post graduate place to study Choral Conducting at The Royal Academy of Music. A highlight from her time at the RAM was conducting The BBC Singers and Rachel graduated in 2008 gaining the Thomas Armstrong Conducting Prize, Irene Burcher prize and Alan Kirby prize for choral training.

Rachel is enthusiastic in the field of music education and recently won a substantial award from The Deutsche Bank to set up a music education company, Cadenza. She gives regular workshops for the Organ Works project at England's prestigious boy's school, Eton College, and in Edinburgh. Rachel is a Vocal Animateur for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, giving regular concerts and workshops on the South Bank and around the country. She has recently designed and delivered the new musical education programme for the internationally renowned Baroque Orchestra The English Concert. Her future engagements include founding and directing a new Community Choir at Handel's once musical home, The Foundling Hospital, and she has three of her choirs in the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year competition.

Rachel very recently got married and enjoyed a fantastic honeymoon to New Zealand. She currently resides on the docks in central London with her husband David.