Laurence Panter was appointed Director of Music of the Rugby Philharmonic Choir in July 2023
Laurence is an experienced pianist, classical tenor, musical director and composer. He studied music at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he was awarded both an academic scholarship and a choral exhibition. He later graduated with distinction from Trinity Laban Conservatoire, where he studied voice. As a pianist, he holds a DipABRSM and has accompanied operatic companies for fully staged productions, various choirs for concerts and rehearsals, and solo singers for exams, recordings, recitals and competitions. He also teaches piano privately. As a singer, he currently sings for Coventry Cathedral as a lay clerk and teaches the choristers of St Mary’s Warwick. He has sung roles with companies including  Longborough Festival Opera, L’Offerta Musicale di Venezia and Barefoot Opera. As musical director, Laurence leads ‘The Harmoneers’, a pop and rock choir in Leamington Spa, and was MD for a tour of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ for Merry Opera Coin 2020. In 2019, he premiered his first opera, ‘The Cruel Sister’, for the Tête-à-tête festival and has also written a quantity of songs and choral works.