Our accompanists

Valerie Tomalin

Valerie is a graduate and a Fellow of Trinity College of Music, London , where she studied piano, viola, singing and accompaniment. After leaving college she lived and worked in Hertfordshire, where, among many musical activities, she was accompanist to the Cassio Operatic Society. She moved to Cheltenham in 1984 and began teaching at Dean Close School . She also formed a piano duo which gave concerts throughout the area and in Oxford and London . In 1990 she was the accompanist for the Seattle Girls Choir during their summer camp in Stanwood , Washington . Valerie has accompanied Philomusica for over 10 years now. In 1996 she was the pianist when the choir gave a recital in the prestigious concert hall of L'Arsenal in Metz , France and her accompaniment of both choir and soloists was highly acclaimed on the Philomusica tour to New England in 2000. Valerie has also taken part in a number of orchestral concerts particularly a wonderful solo in Beethoven's Choral Fantasia in the Philomusica 30th Anniversary Concert. Valerie and Simon Bertram were outstanding in the performance of Carmina Burana which was done in the two piano accompaniment version.

Simon Bertram

Simon Bertram, MMus, ARCM, ARCO, studied music at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, gaining a Master of Music degree, while continuing piano studies with Alexander Kelly at the Royal Academy of Music. Postgraduate piano studies at the RAM followed, encompassing solo performance and accompanying, while at the same time allowing him to participate in an operatic repetiteuring course at English National Opera. At both university and college his skills as a repetiteur led to a considerable amount of work accompanying the choral and operatic societies along with individual singers and instrumentalists, and to concert engagements in Norwich and the Aldeburgh Festival. He performed regularly as soloist with the university orchestra and played regularly in chamber groups.

After his university studies Simon Bertram worked for the DECCA record Company while continuing organ studies with Jane Parker-Smith and Nicolas Kynaston in London and then with Marie-Louise Langlais and Naji Hakim in Paris. After winning 2nd prize in the Paisley International Organ Competition, semi-final places followed in the International competitions in Chartres and Paris, and this led to his debut CD of French Romantic and 20th Century organ music "From Ste. Clotilde to the Sacré-Coeur" being released, which generated much interest in both the player and the new organ of St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.

Simon Bertram currently freelances as a pianist and organist in the Worcestershire and Gloucestershire areas, working with professional instrumentalists and singers, students and choirs, for both concerts and major competitions.

He works regularly with the Philomusica choir and the Swindon Choral Society, and with the mezzo-soprano Maria Jagusz, working with her student singers at college and in the Longborough Festival Opera Young Artists programme. He has accompanied many of them regularly at the Cheltenham Competition Festival, helping them win many of the top singing prizes.