Director of Music

Steve Martin

STEVEN MARTIN was born in London in 1981 and first became interested in music as a boy chorister at St George’s Metropolitan Cathedral, Southwark. His family moved to Sussex in 1991 and there he attended Thomas Peacocke Comprehensive School, Rye. When he and his parents moved to Devon in 1997 Steven went on to Exeter College and then to read music at the University of Exeter. After gaining his MA there, he decided to continue studies at Exeter; a course of action cut short when the Music Department there was closed. He is currently a postgraduate (PhD) student at the University of Bristol, specialising in late nineteenth/early twentieth-century English opera. The focus of his research is the issue of funding for opera during that time, looking closely at the ways and means by which operas by English composers reached the stage. His other research interests include the music of Cyril Scott, Percy Grainger, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Bruce Montgomery (otherwise known as the novelist ‘Edmund Crispin’).

Before his appointment as Director of Music at Crediton, Steven was Director of Music at St Michael and All Angels, Mount Dinham, Exeter, which he combined with his duties as a Bass Choral Scholar at Exeter Cathedral. Since 2004 Steven has directed the Exeter University Choral Society. Before that, he conducted the Exeter University Singers. His organ teachers have included Ron Downs, Dr Lorna Cowdry and Paul Morgan. Steven was awarded his LRSM in organ performance in 2003. He has given numerous organ recitals in and around Devon and Dorset, as well as Fulda, (Germany) and Paris. He has held organ scholarships at Exeter University Chapel and at Holy Cross, Crediton, where he later became Assistant Organist. During his time at Holy Cross, Steven accompanied the choir on numerous visits to cathedrals in England and abroad, and for broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 and Radio Devon. He has also served as President of the Exeter & District Organists’ Association, a predecessor of which was founded by another Crediton organist, Cyril Church, c.1922.