Seven Towers Male Voice Choir

Rea Sheils

MUSICAL DIRECTOR

Music has always been an integral part of Rea’s life. As a student, she was always heavily involved with the music in her school, church and local community. She competed and won prizes at various music festivals over the years and gained valuable experience in both conducting and accompanying. Although also a clarinettist and flautist, her first love was always the piano in which she gained a Performance Diploma from the London College of Music, having previously received an Exhibition Award from Trinity College of Music, London, for her Grade 7 piano when she achieved one of the top 5 marks in the U.K. 

After qualifying as a teacher, she found the perfect job in 1994 when she became full-time music teacher in Mossley P.S., a school highly renowned for its music programme, where she taught classroom music and trained a wide variety of music groups, including the Senior Choir which won the U.T.V. School Choir of the Year Competition in both 2000 and 2005. To win this prestigious competition twice has only been achieved by one other primary school in Northern Ireland.

After 16 years in Mossley, Rea decided to leave and become a self-employed musician. As well as teaching piano, being an organist, performing and accompanying, Rea does freelance work for the City of Belfast School of Music where she annually accompanies over 200 exam candidates of all instruments and grades. Her work also takes her into schools to give professional support, accompany choirs and soloists, prepare candidates for music exams as well as supply and direct the music for school productions, recent shows being ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Mary Poppins’. As someone who is happiest when accompanying, Rea was delighted to become an Office Bearer on the Executive Committee of the Ballymena Music Festival where, as their Accompanist Secretary, she co-ordinates all the music accompaniments for the Vocal and Instrumental sections as well as being one of the Official Accompanists for the Festival every year.

Leah Collyer-Greer

ACCOMPANIST

Leah began playing the piano when she was seven years old. By the age of 14 she was accompanying a children's choir and, as a teenager, played the cello in a youth orchestra, trombone and tenor horn in a brass band, and sang in her church choir.

Leah's love of music led her to take a degree in the subject, followed by a teaching qualification. She then worked in London for 25 years, in a variety of education roles, including class teaching in schools and music curriculum specialist for the local authority. In 2013 she left her roles as Advanced Skills Teacher for music in Croydon and visiting PGCE lecturer at Roehampton University, and moved here with her Ballymena-born husband and their three daughters.

She was a musicianship tutor with the Belfast Philharmonic "Phil Kids" choir and tutored at the Queen's University Junior Academy of Music (JAM) before taking up a long-standing interest in Special Needs Education, and supporting pupils with special needs in mainstream schools in the Antrim area until her recent early retirement.

Leah continues to be busy with her musical and other interests. She is active in various local groups, and plays the organ at Gracehill Moravian Church.