James Speakman (b.1992) found competition success as the winner of the John Sanders Memorial Competition in 2019 with his unaccompanied Latin motet Tui sunt caeli.

 

Since then his work as Assistant Director of Music at The London Oratory School has been the main outlet for his creative energies as a choral composer. He has made a number of arrangements for The London Oratory School Chamber Choir, which have subsequently been adapted for performance by other London-based choirs, including his arrangements of We Three Kings of Orient Are (2023) for The Exonian Choir, and I Dodici, and People Look East (2024) for the Choir of St James’s, Sussex Gardens.

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James is also Director of Music at St John's, Notting Hill, and runs Strawberry Hill Choir.