Compositions performed by Amy Bebbington & Sigurd M. Ogaard

Amy Bebbington

Amy Bebbington was born in Whitchurch, Shropshire. She began her piano training at the age of eight with Mrs. Gillian Yearsley, continued her studies under Mr. John Gough and became an Associate of the London College of Music at the age of seventeen. For Piano Performance, Amy attained a Bachelor of Music degree with First Class Honours in 1996, and a Master of Arts degree in 1997, both from The University of Huddersfield, Yorkshire. In June 2005, she became a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting, having studied under Dr. John Dickson at Texas Tech University, USA.

As a choral singer, Amy has performed with Rodolphus, Choros Amici, Canzonetta and The Texas Tech University Choir, and has appeared on BBC1 and BBC Radio 3. She has performed at choral conferences in England (Birmingham Symphony Hall) and in America (San Antonio, Texas; Little Rock, Arkansas and Los Angeles, California). Amy was the repetiteur for the UK's first all-female opera company, Opera Femina, and for Lakeland Opera. She also worked with The Shout on their community project, Sea Tongue.

Whilst in Yorkshire, Amy directed The Huddersfield People's Choir and The Bradford University Singers. She also worked as a choral animateur for Yorkshire Youth and Music, youngchoirs.net, Youth Music and Sing for Pleasure. Her compositions have been performed by several British and American choral ensembles, most notably by The Joyful Company of Singers (Le Manoir aux Quatre Saisons) and Choros Amici (The Wigmore Hall). Her carol, Blessed be that Maid Marie, is to be published by Shawnee Press Inc. next year.

Sigurd M. Ogaard

Born in Bergen, Norway, in 1978, Sigurd started playing the organ with his uncle in 1988. In 1995, he was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to attend the 1996 Summer Academy for Organists in Haarlem (The Netherlands), where he studied with Prof. Piet Kee. From 1997 until 2002, he was a student at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, majoring in organ performance and church music (choral conducting). As part of this course, he spent one semester at the Conservatoire in Birmingham, England, where he studied with David Saint, James Parsons and David Bruce-Payne. While studying in Birmingham, Sigurd also worked as organ scholar at St Mary's Collegiate Church in Warwick, where he worked with Christopher Betts, now Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Lubbock, Texas. Sigurd is currently a doctoral student at Texas Tech University, studying choral conducting with Dr. John Dickson. He is also Assistant Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in Lubbock. Since his first recital in 1992, Sigurd has given numerous organ recitals in Norway and abroad, including recitals in Denmark, Germany, England (including St Paul's Guildford, Coventry, Birmingham and Westminster Cathedrals) and the United States.