Laurel Neighbour is a musical director and singer with a passion for sharing music-making with others. She currently leads the staff choir for King's College London, London Humanist Choir, Note-orious Community Choir, and Wokingham Choral Society and is looking forward to taking on a new conductor position with London Youth Choir from January 2023.
Laurel completed an apprenticeship with the Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus in 2018 and made her conducting debut at the BBC Proms in 2019 in John Luther Adams' In the Name of the Earth.
Laurel studied music at the University of Nottingham. Growing up in Kent, she sang with Kent Youth Choir, played in Ashford Youth Jazz Orchestra, and learnt to play several instruments in her Mum's folk band.
Laurel has performed with many professional choirs, including St Martin-in-the-Field's Voices, London Contemporary Orchestra, Echo Vocal Ensemble, London Choral Sinfonia, National Portrait Gallery Choir, and St Paul’s Cathedral Consort. She is an alumna of Genesis Sixteen, the choral training programme of internationally renowned chamber choir, The Sixteen. She has toured the UK and made several TV and radio appearances with Gareth Malone's Voices, including a UK tour “Singalong-a-Gareth” as a lead vocalist in Autumn 2022, and sang with The Rolling Stones at the O2 Arena in 2012.
Laurel is also passionate about getting younger voices singing. For several years she was project director for Dartford Choral Outreach and started a role in September 2022 leading Hampton Court Palace’s Songstars project, providing singing support to state primary school children in South West London who have limited access to music. Laurel also currently teaches curriculum music for Southwark Music Service.
In her spare time, Laurel can be seen pedalling around South London on her purple Peugeot racing bike, Polly.