Director of Music - Philip Rushforth
Philip Rushforth began his musical training as a chorister at Chester Cathedral where he began learning the organ with Cathedral Organist, Roger Fisher and became Organ Scholar in 1987. In 1991 he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, as Organ Scholar under Dr Richard Marlow. At Trinity he broadcast and recorded frequently with the world famous college choir, and toured with them extensively in Europe, Canada and the USA. Organ studies continued with David Sanger.

Graduating in 1994, he took up the post of Assistant Organist at Southwell Minster, working closely with Paul Hale and the Cathedral Choir and became the first director of the Southwell Minster Chorale. For eight years he directed the Chorale in Southwell and further a field.

Active as a recitalist, he has performed throughout the country and at many cathedrals and concert halls, including Westminster Cathedral, St Paul’s Cathedral, and King’s College, Cambridge. In September 2000 he was a finalist in the prestigious Royal College of Organists’ Performer of the year Award, performing the Poulenc Organ Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3. He won many recital awards, including performing at St John’s, Smith Square and at the Dublin International Organ and Choral Festival. Invitations to Italy have seen him perform in two International Organ Festivals in Cantu and Senigallia and in September 2007 he played in the International Organ Festival in Sens, France.

In September 2002 he returned to Chester Cathedral as Assistant Director of Music and was appointed Director of Music in December 2007. Under his direction, and in addition to the daily worship of the Cathedral, he has directed the Cathedral choirs in concert, including a tour of Florida in 2007, on CD, and radio. He is a regular director and organist for the Daily Service on Radio 4. He also organises the weekly organ recital series at the Cathedral, performing regularly as a recitalist. He is in constant demand as an accompanist and soloist, both on organ and piano, performing with the Chester Music Society and Chester Bach Choir, and has appeared in the Chester Summer Music Festival and International Church Music Festival.

His recording of organ music by Louis Vierne and Marcel Dupré played on the organ of Chester Cathedral received excellent reviews in music journals and on Radio 3. Two further discs of organ music were released in 2008.

Assistant Director of Music - Ben Chewter
Benjamin Chewter is the Assistant Director of Music at Chester Cathedral where he is responsible for the accompaniment of the statutory services; he also assists with the training of the choristers and directs the Cathedral’s Nave Choir.  
Benjamin was educated at Christ's Hospital School and held the Organ Scholarship at Canterbury Cathedral before going up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge as Organ Scholar (where he read Music and was Organist of King’s Voices, the mixed-voice choir of King’s College Chapel).  He subsequently held the Organ Scholarship at Westminster Abbey and was Assistant Organist of Lincoln Cathedral for three years before taking up his current post.
As an organist and conductor he has performed extensively throughout the UK (at venues including Westminster Abbey, Chichester, Coventry, Lincoln, Canterbury, St Albans and Westminster Cathedrals, and St John's Smith Square in London) and abroad (Sweden, Mexico, Belgium, Poland and Germany).  New music has a strong place in his repertoire: in 2007 he premiered a large-scale organ work by the Romanian composer Ciprian Ilie and conducted the premieres of two operas by Nicholas Shardlow and Peter Foggitt (alongside a set of orchestral interludes by Rowland Moseley) in Cambridge.  In 2011 he premiered Howard Skempton’s Wedding March at Chester Cathedral. 
Benjamin continues his studies in organ repertoire and improvisation with David Briggs and Stephen Farr.  He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and also holds the College's Choral Conducting Diploma.

Organ Scholar - Laurence Lyndon-Jones
Laurence Lyndon-Jones is a recent graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he read mathematics and was Organ Scholar for four years. He started in cathedral music as a chorister at St. Albans Cathedral and began learning the organ there after leaving the choir. Laurence appeared with the choir in the film Johnny English, and also took park in tours to the USA, Sweden and Holland.

Whilst Organ Scholar at Pembroke, Laurence conducted the chapel choir on tours to Tallinn, Milan and Barcelona and at two evensongs at Westminster Abbey in London. He also organised and conducted a CD recording by the choir in 2008 called Locus Iste. He has played organ recitals at Pembroke, St. John’s, Harris Manchester and Exeter Colleges in Oxford, and at Chester and St. Albans Cathedrals. Laurence was the conductor of the Arcadian Singers of Oxford in 2010, and conducted a performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre.

Other musical interests include singing and playing the trombone, and he toured to Israel, Poland, Switzerland and Holland with Schola Cantorum of Oxford chamber choir and the Oxford University Big Band. He sang at a public masterclass with Emma Kirkby in Queen’s College Chapel, Oxford, and is an Associate of Trinity College London for recital performance on the Trombone.