Selsey Music Group

We first got together in the Summer of 2019 to: -

• Promote Selsey as a centre of music for people of all ages and from all backgrounds with diverse musical tastes.

• Promote appreciation of, and participation in, music, particularly amongst children by supporting small bands and groups, facilitating the loan of instruments, forging links with music teachers and running events.

• Put Selsey on the National Music Venue map by promoting concerts given by elite performers.

Our inaugural concert pictured above; it featured Peter Fisher and Dorothy Linell (who gave her London recital debut at the South Bank Centre’s Purcell Room as a winner of a national Young Artists’ Competition. Since then, she has played instruments ranging from baroque guitar to banjo in venues from Moscow to Mexico.)

Peter is an artist of remarkable versatility and insight who possesses a tone quality of great beauty and lyricism. His extensive repertoire ranges from the Baroque to Jazz and, exceptionally among his generation, he has a strong affinity with the romantic music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Equally at home in the role of soloist, chamber musician and director, Peter established the Chamber Ensemble of London in 1997, consisting of handpicked players from the leading London-based orchestras and chamber music ensembles.

Peter has come back to us twice more since then, around the Covid pandemic. Selsey has also had performances from Ben Thapa, ex-G4 and Mike Christie, who is still in the group and manages them as well. Ben left G4 in 2018, and has forged a varied and substantial career on the stage across a range of repertory. Operatic credits include Tito (La Clemenza di Tito, Teatru Manoel), Kudrjash (Katya Kabanova, Scottish Opera on Tour), The President (Mittwoch aus Licht, Birmingham Opera/BBC Proms), Arbace (Idomeneo, Buxton Festival), Melot (Tristan und Isolde, Longborough Festival Opera) and Siegfried (The Quest for the Ring, Royal Festival Hall in association with Opera North).

Mike started singing professionally at the age of 8 when he was a chorister for five years, during which time he appeared in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral and sang on various soundtracks including The Browning Version and The Ref. He won the solo singing category at the Beckenham Festival in 1997 and the Surrey Young Male Singer competition in 2001. Mike then went on to study music for four years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he gained a scholarship and a bachelor of music degree with honours. In recent years, Mike has made his opera debut in the role of Prince Gremin in a concert version of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, followed by his fully-staged solo opera debut in Brent Opera's production of Manon Lescaut in the role of Geronte de Revoir, and Banquo in Verdi's Macbeth for Guildford Opera. At Opera Holland Park, Mike has performed in Mascagni's Iris, Puccini's La bohème, Tchaikowsky's The Queen of Spades, Leoncavallo's Zazà, Janáček's Káťa Kabanová and Mascagni's Isabeau, and in Verdi's Requiem for their memorial concert to support those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.