Organist & Choir Director
- Glynne Stackhouse 

Glynne at the console of the organ in St Mary's Church







I read Music at Merton College, Oxford from 1960 to 1963, holding the College’s first Postmastership (Scholarship) in Music. I had organ lessons with John Webster, the University Organist. I sang in Merton College Choir, the Schola Cantorum and the Kodaly Choir, learning a lot from their great Hungarian choral conductor, László Heltay. From 1963 to 1965 I did research into post-Restoration Anglican Church Music and then taught Harmony and Counterpoint for a year at Trinity College of Music, London. From 1966 to 1970 I was Director of Music at Wallingford Grammar School (then a boys’ school in North Berkshire) where major performances included the medieval Play of Daniel (with counter-tenor James Bowman in the title role), Haydn’s “Nelson” Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia, and Gluck’s Iphigenia in Aulis. I then joined the Overseas career Service of the British Council, and worked in Libya, Rome, Botswana and Hamburg as well as in London. I was Head of the Council’s Music Department from 1989 until my early retirement in 1996. I was a member of the Board of Making Music (the National Federation of Music Societies) and at different times Secretary and Chairman of Wallingford Chameleon Arts, organising concerts by professional musicians in the 18th-century Church of St Peter. From 2003 to 2016 I was organist at the Chapel of St Bartholomew, Goring Heath. I started to help out at St Mary’s, Streatley, in March 2021 and was appointed organist and choir director in May 2022. Apart from music, my main interests are going to the theatre and opera, reading history and modern novels, my family and friends, and exploring odd corners of England and Wales. On the whole I regard myself less as an organist, and more as a musician who plays the organ.