Gippeswyk Singers

Janette Ruocco - Conductor

Janette Ruocco has undertaken extensive training as a choral director and conductor and holds an MA in Choral Education and an LRSM in Choral Direction, furthering her studies in orchestral conducting as one of eight students selected for a course at the London Conducting Academy. Janette is a dedicated music educator who brings her own passion for choral music to all of the groups with whom she works. With her own blend of humour, encouragement and insistence on musical performance at all times, she supports the development of musical literacy, vocal technique, a love of performance and, above all, an appreciation of the wealth of possibilities for creative communication through the medium of the human voice.

In addition to current work with four adult chamber choirs, Gippeswyk Singers, The Meljon Singers, Nota Bene and the 12-voice vocal group, Bocca Aperta, Janette’s previous posts include the musical directorship of Braintree Choral Society, Harleston Choral Society, The London-based Illumination Chamber Choir and the adult training choir, Harlow Voiceworks Academy. Janette is the founder and artistic director of The Dargason Ensemble which has accompanied several of her choirs in large-scale choral works.

Janette is in demand as a freelance choral workshop leader with young singers, working for two years as part of the Chelmsford Cathedral Chorister Outreach Project team. Invitations to work with young singers have included directing the choristers and school choirs at the opening night of the St David’s Cathedral Festival in Wales, and a performance of her cantata Swallow Tale with singers from Havering primary schools at The Queen’s Theatre in Romford. Since 2017 Janette has directed two concert performances a year of the 300 strong Billericay Junior Music Festival choir at The Towngate Theatre in Basildon.

Janette enjoys singing a cappella Renaissance polyphony with the vocal octet, Eight Voices, a group that regularly performs in central London, Suffolk and in Italy. Over the last sixteen years she has taken different choirs to Liguria to perform in the annual Rassegna Corale Levantese. In her spare time Janette writes choral music for the groups that she conducts and has composed ‘A New Year Carol’ for performance by the Gippeswyk Singers in the 2021 Christmas concert.