Ralph Allwood MBE was for 26 years Director of Music at Eton College and is now a freelance choral director. He is the Director of the Eton Choral Courses, which he founded in 1980. Seven thousand 16 to 20 year olds have been students on courses over the last thirty-five years. He co-founded the Junior Choral Courses in 2012, and is now planning courses in Shanghai, Melbourne and Greenwich, Connecticut. The Rodolfus choir, made up of the best singers from the courses, has been described as ‘unspeakably beautiful’ by Gramophone. It has produced over 20 CDs.

Ralph is a founder and conductor of Inner Voices, a choir made up of singers from state schools in London. He has conducted choirs for 40 live broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, is a judge for the Llangollen Eisteddfod and Cork International Choral Competition and has written much music heard worldwide on radio and television.

Ralph adjudicates the Llangollen Eisteddfod and the Cork International Choral Competition. He is a Fellow Commoner advising in music at Music at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and an Honorary Fellow of University College, Durham. He is Choral Advisor to Novello, Wellington College and Trinity College, Oxford. He teaches at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and at his old school, Tiffin.

In 2012 Ralph was awarded a Doctorate of Music by Aberdeen University. He was made MBE in the 2012 New Year’s Honours list.