New Year’s Honours for choral movers and shakers

Peter Broadbent, Andrew Carwood and Mark Strachan were among an illustrious array of figures from the musical world to feature in the 2022 UK New Year’s Honours list.

MBEs were awarded to Broadbent, director and conductor of the Joyful Company of Singers and Carwood, who founded The Cardinall’s Musick and is director of music at St Paul’s Cathedral. Strachan, founder of the lockdown-inspired Choir of the Earth, was awarded a British Empire Medal.

John Gilhooly, who became the youngest director of any of the world’s leading concert halls when he became artistic and executive director of Wigmore Hall, London at the age of 32 has received a CBE for his services to music.

Charles Alexander, the chair of Opera Rara, specialists in reviving rare operatic works, received a CBE for voluntary and charitable services to the arts, culture and health along with Norman Murray, former chair of Scottish Ballet.

Alpesh Chauhan has received an OBE for his services to the arts as music director of Birmingham Opera Company, as has Mark Pemberton, director of the Association of British Orchestras, and Steven Osborne, the pianist. Further OBEs were awarded to Pauline Black, former lead singer with The Selecter, for her services to entertainment, and to Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante, recording artist and producer, co-founder of Boy Blue, the pioneering hip-hop music and dance collective.

Photo: Peter Broadbent, Joyful Company of Singers