During our 2024/25 season, we are looking forward to working with two different conductors.
Principal Conductor - Tanya Houghton (Christmas concert, Orchestral Masterpieces concert and Summer concert)

Tanya is a musician who lives, works and makes music in Northern Ireland, her adopted country, of which she is very fond. Originally from Birmingham, she studied in Cambridge, London and Paris before embarking on a career that has taken her far across the physical world and all around the musical world in ways she could never have imagined.
Tanya has always enjoyed many styles and genres of music and plays several instruments as well as conducting, singing, teaching and organising music and concerts. She has over 20 years of professional experience as a high-level concert harpist, in which role she has been lucky to play for symphony orchestras, chamber groups, choirs and as an accompanist and soloist. A keen singer from a young age, she particularly enjoys where these worlds combine, for example in her work with the choir of Clare College Cambridge (with whom she has released several well-received recordings) and the BBC Singers (with whom she has broadcast on Radio 3, and premièred as dedicatee a work for harp and choir by Bob Chilcott, My perfect stranger). She has been heard on many other broadcasts and recordings, including A rose in the middle of winter which reached the top of the classical charts and grammy-nominated Imogen Holst; Choral works.
She regularly performs as guest principal harpist with the Ulster Orchestra, can sometimes be spotted in Dublin with the RTECO or NSO, and in the past has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, English Touring Opera and Northern Ballet amongst others. She has had the privilege of working with orchestral conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Roger Norrington, Vladimir Jurowski and Edward Gardner and choral directors Sir John Rutter, Sir Stephen Cleobury, David Hill and Graham Ross. She was delighted to accompany Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway in The Lord is my shepherd for 2 flutes and harp on BBC Songs of Praise. In 2018 she broadcast live on Radio 3 from Tollymore Forest in Northern Ireland, as a soloist and accompanying soprano Sinead O’Kelly singing one of Tanya’s folk song arrangements.
Tanya loves arranging music for voices, a skill that has been expanded by her work with her wonderful community choir, the Helen’s Bay Singers, who have existed since the 2020 pandemic and flourished ever since. An a cappella, non-auditioned, all-age community choir, it provides Tanya and many others with great joy. The group has twice travelled to participate in the City of Derry Choral Festival and performs at occasions throughout the year around the village of Helen’s Bay.
Tanya also started the annual Helen’s Bay Summer Music Festival, a weekend celebration of local music and musicians, welcoming professional groups and championing local young musicians in the (in)famous Musical Picnic Tea.
Much to her delight she has recently been appointed Principal Conductor of the Studio Symphony Orchestra in Belfast, a group full of dedicated and enthusiastic amateur musicians, with whom she greatly enjoys discovering and engaging with large-scale symphonic works. She also directs and sings in Melisma, a Belfast-based 8 voice choir, who have appeared on Radio Ulster and Songs of Praise, and who recorded the backing vocals to The Priests' album "Alleluia" under her direction. She has also conducted the Belfast Bach Consort in their monthly Cantata series, including performances of Ein feste Burg for the anniversary of the Reformation.
She is the inaugural Musician in Residence at Rosemary Street First Presbyterian Church, Belfast and enjoys being part of the life of this welcoming, free-thinking congregation and playing for thoughtful and inspiring services.
A keen advocate of music education, Tanya is also a classroom music teacher at Methodist College Belfast, where she enjoys directing the Junior Choir and being part of the musical journey of some phenomenally talented young musicians.
Tanya believes music has the power to enrich our lives beyond all measure, and is more than delighted to have been able to spend her life and career thus far sharing music with many people in many places. It gives her great joy to see the next generation discovering this as well, and she looks forward to many more inspiring performances on every level and for every person.
Guest conductor - Paul McCusker (Music from the Movies concert)

We are delighted to welcome Paul McCusker once again as he returns as our guest conductor following his first performance in May 2024. When not conducting, Paul is also a regular member of our first violin section.
Paul began studying music when he took up the violin and piano at the age of seven. Following school, he opted to study zoology at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), but while there he became heavily involved in the musical life of the university, conducting the Music Society Choir and then the QUB Symphony Orchestra.
Having completed his PhD in molecular parasitology in 2014, Paul worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Biological Sciences at QUB before leaving in 2017 to study conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with Garry Walker and Alasdair Mitchell. There, he won the Hugh S Roberton prize for orchestral conducting, participated in a workshop with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted the Red Note Ensemble in concert.
In March 2018 he won the panel and orchestra prizes at the Feis Ceoil Conducting Competition with the RTE Concert Orchestra, which led to a lunchtime concert performance with the RTE Concert Orchestra. In December 2018 he conducted an Ulster Youth Orchestra 25th Anniversary Alumni concert and subsequently headed the Esker Festival Orchestra Concert Tour in Summer 2019. While working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, USA (2018 – 2020), he established an orchestra before returning to QUB in 2020.
In recent years Paul has studied with Garry Walker, David Brophy and Jac van Steen. Jac invited Paul to take part in a conducting masterclass with the Ulster Orchestra in June 2022 which subsequently led to an opportunity to work with the orchestra, recording a commission by Philip Hammond in March 2023.
Over the last ten years Paul has also worked with the Ulster Youth Orchestra and founded/directed Laganside Sinfonia, a Belfast based charity orchestra that has raised around £20,000 for local charities since its establishment. In January 2024 Paul made his debut with the Hard Rain Ensemble, a Belfast based contemporary group and he conducted the Studio Symphony Orchestra for the first time in May 2024.