The musical director of The Aragon Singers is Gren Gutteridge.
Gren was born in a village south of Nottingham and gained much of his musical grounding there. He had no formal musical training but rather gained a degree in Mathematics at London University and subsequently became a Maths teacher.
Gren has two brothers who are both musical, a talent they inherited from their parents, and they have performed as a trio many times under the guise of “The Gutteridge brothers” Gren developed his love for music at school and in the village chapel. Initially a trumpeter, he taught himself to play the piano to help in chapel and has since gathered quite a few musical instruments.He plays none of them well. It was actually at the age of 18 that he picked up the baton for the first time when he was asked to lead the choirs in the memorable Sunday School Anniversary. Indeed, The Aragon Singers have recently added to their repertoire one of the numbers that Gren first conducted all those years ago.
Although Gren “plays” various instruments, it is as a singer that he has derived so much pleasure over the years. School, Chapel, University and Village Choral Society all served to give him a wide singing experience both as part of a group and as a soloist. It was in Chapel that he first went on stage in annual concert parties provided by The Men’s Circle. It is perhaps as a result of this that he subsequently sang for seven years as a Club Singer in the North of England and eventually joined male voice Choirs. He
can still occasionally be persuaded to don the makeup or to sing with his brothers, but he has done most of his singing in recent times with Huntingdon Male Voice Choir an currently with the London Welsh Male Voice Choir. It was with the Huntingdon Choir that he picked
up the baton again after so many years when he acted as deputy conductor for a time.
He sort of trickled into The Aragon Singers, at first singing on the odd Monday evening, then appearing at the occasional concert until he became a regular member of the Tenor section about three years ago. He joined to sing, and had to be persuaded to conduct the Choir when the need arose because of Margaret’s retirement. Perhaps not yet hooked on conducting, he is certainly hooked on The Aragon Singers, spending much of his time on researching pieces for the current and future repertoires.
Gren has happily lived in Buckden since the year 2000. Married to Diane, and with sons Gareth and Michael who play football for the village, he seems destined to remain for some time with The Aragon Singers of Buckden.
