PROFILE
MUSIC EDUCATOR, AWARD WINNING COMPOSER, MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST, ORCHESTRATOR
Andrew Weeks is an award-winning British composer, orchestrator, educator & multi-instrumentalist. With over 15 years of experience as a musician (educator, accordionist, singer, percussionist, musical director, conductor and composer), Andrew works in the arenas of film & television (music for the moving image), music education, choral music, orchestral performance and composition, folk, jazz and musical theatre. Andrew's music ranges from choral music & orchestral film scores, to chamber music and contemporary folk, though he writes predominantly Contemporary Classical Music in a post-minimalist style for a variety of ensembles.
Andrew is currently Director of the TRIORCA European Youth Orchestra, and Head of Composition at Norwich School.
As as a commercial media composer, his music can be heard on programmes such as the BBC's Gardener’s World, Chelsea Flower Show & Countryfile! with film credits on IMDb. As a singer, accordionist, percussionist, conductor, his projects have seen him touring the British Folk scene as well as working with youth orchestras and musical pit bands. Andrew has recorded music with The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Norwich Cathedral Choir, Inlay Folk Ensemble, The Academy of St. Thomas and Norwich School Ensembles. Experienced performer as a Bass-Baritone singer, Percussionist, Accordion player, Conductor and Musical Director, projects include touring the British Folk Scene, UK folk festival circuit, directing and performing with some of the country's leading choirs, & conducting youth musicals. Career highlights include conducting a leading youth orchestra alongside London Mozart Players, MD for youth music theatre shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and arranging for the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
Andrew Weeks is an award-winning British composer, orchestrator, educator & multi-instrumentalist. With over 15 years of experience as a musician (educator, accordionist, singer, percussionist, musical director, conductor and composer), Andrew works in the arenas of film & television (music for the moving image), music education, choral music, orchestral performance and composition, folk, jazz and musical theatre. Andrew's music ranges from choral music & orchestral film scores, to chamber music and contemporary folk, though he writes predominantly Contemporary Classical Music in a post-minimalist style for a variety of ensembles.
Andrew is currently Director of the TRIORCA European Youth Orchestra, and Head of Composition at Norwich School.
As as a commercial media composer, his music can be heard on programmes such as the BBC's Gardener’s World, Chelsea Flower Show & Countryfile! with film credits on IMDb. As a singer, accordionist, percussionist, conductor, his projects have seen him touring the British Folk scene as well as working with youth orchestras and musical pit bands. Andrew has recorded music with The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Norwich Cathedral Choir, Inlay Folk Ensemble, The Academy of St. Thomas and Norwich School Ensembles. Experienced performer as a Bass-Baritone singer, Percussionist, Accordion player, Conductor and Musical Director, projects include touring the British Folk Scene, UK folk festival circuit, directing and performing with some of the country's leading choirs, & conducting youth musicals. Career highlights include conducting a leading youth orchestra alongside London Mozart Players, MD for youth music theatre shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and arranging for the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
Full biography
Andrew began his musical life as a classically trained percussionist and pianist; he grew up in Berkshire and took up piano lessons at the age of five. At the same age he picked up the accordion, accompanying his mother's Morris Dancing Team, (a tradition he would later revisit at university). As a teenager, Andrew listened to all styles of music from Indie, Grunge & Rock, to Choral, Jazz, Classical & Traditional styles. He found himself playing music at his local church, in rock, jazz and indie bands at school, and was a founder member of the award-winning Taplow Youth Choir. Andrew went on to read music at the University of East Anglia graduating in July 2011 with First Class Honours. He received the George Alfred Norman-Watkins Memorial Scholarship and Dorothea and Rowan Hare Scholarship for performance and now performs with many different hats on. He studied percussion with Simon Limbrick exploring contemporary works for multi-percussion, marimba and vibraphone. Academic modules included Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music, Composition, Score/Aural/Tonal Analysis, Sound and Information, Sources, Conducting, Electroacoustic composition, The Englishness of English Music, Process and Situation: The composer and his work in the late twentieth century, Sound for image/sound design, Recording and Studio Skills.
A passionate composer for a range of genres, Andrew has written music for film, choirs, orchestras, folk bands and school ensembles. Establishing himself has a composer in many areas, he mostly enjoys writing choral music, contemporary post-minimalist scores, orchestrating for small and large ensembles. He writes commercial production music for media, as well as music for the concert platform, having collaborated with composers Oliver Spencer and Justin Breame for Hitpoint Music Library, (a production company for TV & Film based in London), and features on shows such as BBC Two's Gardener's World & The Chelsea Flower Show. Recent choral compositions include 'Hope is the Thing with Feathers' for SATB Choir, Flute & Piano, commissioned in 2023 for the Sheringham & Cromer Choral Society as part of their 90th Birthday Celebrations. 'A Mass for Planet Earth', for SATB Choir, Orchestra & Organ was commissioned by the Norwich School Choral Society and performed in March 2023 at St. Andrew's Hall Norwich. His three Christmas Motets; [O Magnum Mysterium - SSAATTBB; Lux Fulgébit - SSAATTBB + optional marimba; Veni, Veni O Oriens (O Radiant Dawn) - for double choir + soprano saxophone], were written in 2021 The Norwich Consort of Voices & British saxophonist Finlay McEwen.In 2016 he won the Sloane Square Choral Society Composition Competition with his entry of Cantate Domino for SATB, Organ, Harp & Percussion. In 2018 he received his first IMDb credit as composer contributor for the film Tessellation by Charmaine Mujeri and Agnieska Pietrowska [a collaboration with ThinkSpace Productions]. In 2020, he completed his Masters degree in Composition and Orchestration with Thinkspace Education Film Scoring School (University of Chichester). In 2022, he helped score 'The Scales'; a short film directed and produced by young film maker Jack Parfitt and is currently working on Jack's new short, 'Rocket Fuel', out for release in 2024.
As a performer, Andrew is very much a cross-over artist; he adores the oratorio stage, performs with jazz ensembles, choirs, folk musicians and orchestras, and is particularly fond of English Folk music and music from the choral repertory. He appears on 3 discs with acclaimed contemporary English folk band Inlay on their self-titled album (2012), live EP (2015), and 'Forge' (2016) as an accordion player, singer and percussionist and performed across the UK folk festival circuit between 2010 - 2019. The collaborative group have performed at folk festivals in the UK including Beardy Folk Festival, Broadstairs Folk Week, Bromyard Folk Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Cheltenham Folk Festival, Gate to Southwell Folk Festival, Leigh-on-Sea Folk Festival, Manchester Folk Festival, Moseley Folk Festival, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Shrewsbury Folk Festival, Sidmouth Folk Week, Towersey Festival & Warwick Folk Festival. He has recorded with Norwich Cathedral Choir on their recent CD of Britten's Choral Music as well as 'Evening Hymn; Music of Light' (2018). Andrew features on percussion with The Academy of St. Thomas for their Saint-Saens Variations on a Theme of Beethoven arranged by Christopher Adey, Gliere’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano with Catherine May and Vaughan William’s The Lark Ascending with Hannah Perowne as soloist.
Andrew's first experience of singing was at 16 with Taplow Youth Choir under the direction of Gillian Dibden, who have performed at University Church Oxford, St. George’s Chapel Windsor and at Eton College Chapel for a BBC Radio 3 recording of evensong. The choir won the National Music Festival for Youth in 2008, the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year Competition for the Youth Category, and toured to Europe with a varied repertoire. It was with this choir that he learnt his craft. Since then, Andrew has been fortunate to have performed in some of the most celebrated venues in the UK including the Royal Festival Hall, The Southbank Centre, Snape Maltings and the Royal Albert Hall. Andrew enjoys performing oratorio works as a bass soloist, and is in demand as a soloist and chorus singer, particularly in the East of England. In 2011-12 he held a scholarship at Norwich Cathedral as a Bass Choral Scholar and enjoyed singing for daily services, recording with BBC Radio 3 and touring to France with the Girls' Choir. Andrew regularly deputises as a Bass layclerk in Norwich. He has studied with Andrew Yeats, David Lowe, Patricia Rozario, & Ben Johnson; (BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist). Andrew has sung in many choirs including The Cantus Ensemble, The Morley Consort of Voices, Northampton Bach Choir, Norwich Cathedral Choir, Novi Cantores, Sonitus Chamber Choir, The Choir of St. Peter Mancroft, Taplow Youth Choir, and the UEA Chamber Choir. He has performed the role of ‘Polyphemus’ in a chamber performance of Handel’s Acis and Galatea, the role of 'Councillor' in the ACE-funded musical theatre production of 'Strike!', in March 2021 with Do Different Productions, and has enjoyed performing Oratorios such as Handel’s Messiah, Rossini's Petite Messe Sollenelle, Puccini's Messa di Gloria, Schubert's Mass in G and the Requiem masses by Brahms, Fauré, Duruflé, and Mozart amongst other repertoire (see performance history). Andrew has been fortunate to sing in some of the most beautiful churches and cathedrals in the UK including Rochester Cathedral, St. Paul's Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, Peterborough Cathedral, Worcester Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, Eton College Chapel, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Magdalen, Merton & University Colleges in Oxford, and Clare, St. John's & Fitzwilliam Colleges in Cambridge. He has enjoyed being Artistic Director (2012-2015) of the acclaimed Morley Consort of Voices who, during that time, sang at Hampton Court Palace to celebrate their 500th year anniversary, and a semi-staged performance of Henry Purcell's famous Dido & Aeneas with Norwich Baroque. He co-founded the group in 2009 with the with the late composer and musicologist Peter Aston who was Professor Emeritus at the UEA. As a singer and percussionist he has performed under the baton of David Parry, Bob Chilcott, Ben Pope, Christopher Adey, David Dunnett, Ashley Grote, Jiří Bělohlávek, Matthew Andrews, Richard Allain, Sharon Choa & Peter Aston.
Andrew has worked with Norwich School for over a decade. He has enjoyed many roles including Tutor-to-Choristers, Acting Head of Academic Music, Head of Instrumental Music & Composition (2019-2023), as well as Choral Director of the school's Choral Society. In 2016, the school's Chapel Choir travelled to the Royal Festival Hall to perform in the final of the Barnados National Choir of the Year Competition (2016). Andrew has enjoyed working with Norwich School Choral Society, who have collaborated with London Mozart Players & Norwich Baroque, as well as working with the Gateway Players Senior Orchestra, Uberbeat Percussion Ensemble, and Concert/Jazz Bands.
An ardent supporter of music education and outreach, he has worked with English Touring Opera and the Royal College of Music in partnership with Turtle Key Arts on the ‘Turtle Song’ project for people suffering with Dementia, (with support from the Alzheimer's Society). Orchestrated by Charlotte Cunningham (founder of Turtle) & Tim Yealland (ETO), the 10-week course provided an opportunity for people with dementia and their companions to sing and compose their own songs with professional musicians. The project's fifth outing was held at the Warden's Centre just north of Aldeburgh and led by John Petter and Alys Kihl. Andrew recently supported London Chamber Orchestra's Music Junction outreach project in Norfolk, and has had the privilege of conducting the High School's Choir Festivals and CASMA projects for the Norfolk Music Service in recent years. Andrew has played in pit bands in multiple theatre productions for youth performances including Bugsy Malone, Chicago, Footloose (MD), Grease with Oscars XI (MD, Edinburgh Festival), Fame (MD) Guys & Dolls, Jesus Christ Superstar, Legally Blonde, Les Miserables, Little Shop of Horrors with Oscars XI (MD, Edinburgh Festival), Sweeney Todd, Sweet Charity, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, and We Will Rock You. He is proud to have coordinated the Primary Schools Singing Project with Ashley Grote (Master of Music); an outreach programme with the Choristers at Norwich Cathedral. The scheme reaches around 12 primary schools per year (around 250 children) and each school perform songs and warm-ups, learnt during workshops, for a concert at Norwich Cathedral. The Cathedral musicians offer an organ demonstration from the Master of Music, and a performance from the Cathedral Choir. The scheme also offers opportunities for sixth form musicians to work in the community to gain vital experience for those interested in a career in music in the future.
