Office Bearers

Simon Over studied at the Amsterdam Conservatoire and Royal Academy of Music and read music at Oxford University. From 1992 to 2002 Simon was a member of the music staff of Westminster Abbey, and Director of Music at both St Margaret's Church and the Chapel of St. Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster.

Co-founder and Music Director of the Southbank Sinfonia, he has conducted the orchestra in a range of performances and projects in venues across the UK and Europe. Recently Simon conducted the orchestra in the 2009 and 2010 productions at the National Theatre of ‘Every Good Boy Deserves Favour’ by Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn.

He has performed with many great artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Felicity Lott, Dame Emma Kirkby, Sir Willard White and Sir James Galway. Recent projects include conducting the Southbank Sinfonia in two CD recordings, with cellist Raphael Wallfisch and tenor Andrew Kennedy.

He is the Founder-Conductor of the Parliament Choir, Director of Music of the Malcolm Sargent Festival Choir and Artistic Director of the Anghiari Festival in Tuscany. He also works closely with Samling, based in north-east England, in its work with young singers. Simon is guest conductor of the City Chamber Orchestra in Hong Kong and of the Southern Sinfonia in New Zealand.

Nicholas O'Neill was born in Cheltenham in 1970, and is an award-winning composer and musician. In 2020 he was awarded the Saint Fin Barre Cathedral Composition Prize, in 2019 he was the winner of the Mayfield Festival Cantata Commission Competition, in 2012 he was awarded the American Guild of Organists Marilyn Mason Award for Organ Composition, he shared the Barbara Johnstone Composition Prize in 1995, won the Gregynog Young Composers' Award in 1993, and in 1992 he was unanimously awarded first prize in the Norwich Festival Composition Competition. He has been shortlisted for the William Mathias, Cornelius Cardew, Oare String Orchestra, Purcell and Vocalis composition awards.

In 2011 Nick was appointed Composer in Residence to the UK Parliament Choir in addition to his ongoing role with them as Chorus Master, and is the first composer to be associated officially with Parliament for nearly 500 years. In 2008 he became the first musician to be appointed Composer in Residence for the Academy of Saint Cecilia where he is also an Honorary Fellow and a member of the advisory panel. He is President of Cantores Salicium, the chamber choir of the Yorkshire Dales, and Associate Director of Music at St. Mary Abbots, Kensington. He has lectured at Trinity College of Music, Birkbeck College (University of London), Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and Morley College. He has also held posts as Organist of Brighton College and St. George's Cathedral, Southwark, and was Chorus Master of the Malcolm Sargent Festival Choir for over a decade. He also works regularly with Southbank Sinfonia, accompanying them to the Anghiari Festival in Tuscany, where he introduces each concert.

Recently completed works include the Cantata Of Saint Dunstan , commissioned to celebrate the 50 ^th anniversary of the Mayfield Festival, an orchestral setting of Te Deum Laudamus for the Parliament Choir, and This Light Of Reason, a carol in memory of Jo Cox MP. His music has been broadcast multiple times on television and radio, and his Missa Sancti Nicolai was the Mass setting for the live BBC1 broadcast of Midnight Mass in 2011. Recent performance venues include Cadogan Hall, St. John's, Smith Square, Notre Dame de Paris and at the London Festival Of Contemporary Church Music.

By night Nick is keyboardist with rock band JEBO, who released their second album, Settle Up or Settle Down in 2012, described as 'genuinely ingenious...undeniably brilliant' by Venue magazine, and with funk band RetroChic. He is also a board game reviewer and blogger, writing for various websites and magazines worldwide.