Dr Francis Roads - Musical Director

Francis studied music at Pembroke College, Oxford and the Royal College of Music, London. He took early retirement from a 30 year teaching career in 1994. Since then he has devoted himself to researching and editing West Gallery church music. His doctoral thesis included the first modern edition of some West Gallery manuscripts from the Isle of Man. He is an active member of the West Gallery Music Association.

In addition to acting as Musical Director of the London Gallery Quire, Francis organises workshops on West Gallery Music. He has organised five weekend courses at Little Benslow, in Hertfordshire, four in Pembroke College Chapel, Oxford, and four lectures/workshops at the Royal Holloway University of London. He is particularly keen to promote the use of West Gallery music in modern church services and to this end he has led workshops, often followed by an evensong in many places, eg Goring-on-Thames (Oxon), Stow-cum-Quy (Cambs), Tisbury (Wilts), Leytonstone (Essex), Norwich (evensong televised by Anglia TV), Hadleigh (Suffolk), Hastings (Sussex) and Douglas (Isle of Man) as well as in the USA.

For more details:
Tel. 020-8505-4381 or email

Publications

Under the imprint 'Roding Music', Francis has a catalogue of photocopyable masters of West Gallery music for church choirs and other music groups to purchase.

Free leaflets
Francis has also produced a series of short introductory leaflets about West Gallery Music for Church choirs and similar groups who might be interested in extending their repertoire. Click HERE for more details

Ye Boundless Realms of Joy - Reamyn yn Yrjey Vooar Forty West Gallery Psalms, Hymns and Anthems from the Isle of Man This selection of West Gallery music, published by the Centre for Manx Studies at the University of Liverpool, is drawn from the Colby Manuscripts, collected and used by William Shepherd in the Isle of Man in the early decades of the 19th century and includes 32 added Manx texts and contains settings of 31 psalms, 5 hymns, 2 anthems, a canticle and a double chant. For more details and a review, click HERE

West Gallery Music Vol. 1; General Service Music The music in this publication by Kevin Mayhew Ltd is in short score designed specifically for the use of modern church choirs and contains several West Gallery favourites by Clark, Fawcett, Hill, and White For more details, click HERE

Compositions
Francis Roads has composed several psalm & hymn settings, carols and anthems in the West Gallery style. Here are two examples in PDF format:
Carol: "A glorious star from heaven appeared" - text from a Birmingham broadsheet.
Anthem from Psalm 46 - "God is our hope and strength".