Trevor Alexander & Peter Crockford
Biography Trevor Alexander & Peter Crockford
Trevor Alexander
was born and raised in Sussex. His love for singing developed at a very early age and he sang in his local church choir and took part in various school productions and concerts. Whilst training and working as a Graphic Artist in Brighton, he studied singing with Soo Bee Lee and, under her guidence, won many prizes in local festivals. At this time he joined the Brighton Theatre Group and performed Lun Tha (The King and I), Mordred (Camelot), Motel (Fiddler on the Roof) and Barnaby (Hello Dolly) for them at the Brighton Theatre Royal. He gained a place at the Gulidhall School of Music and Drama and continued his vocal studies with David Pollard. Whilst at college he sang with the Dumas Trio and was a member of the Stuart Headlam Players (roles included: The Vicar in Alan Ayckbourn’s Gosforth’s Fate and Adrian in The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Societies Production of Macbeth). At the Guildhall he won the Lieder Prize and was awarded a bursary to continue his studies there on the Opera Course. He did his first commercial pantomime as The Emperor of China in Aladdin at The Harlequin Theatre, Redhill and, on graduating from the Guildhall, toured the country in Ivor Novello’s Kings Rhapsody as a Serenader. He also toured in Ken Hill’s Happy as a Sandbag for the Arc Theatre Company, was in Beauty and the Beast at The Players' Theatre, and played Alderman Fitzwarren and The Sultan in Dick Whittington at The Plowright Theatre, Scunthorpe. He toured in the RSC and Opera North's award winning production of Show Boat culminating in a season at The London Palladium.
During his early career he worked as a chorister at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and was in The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance for The New D’Oyly Carte. He was part of the team for Educational Workshops for The Royal Opera, Opera Exclusive and Dorset Opera. He sang Papageno - Die Zauberflöte (Blackheath Opera), Dancairo - Carmen (Opera Exclusive), Cavaliere di Belfiore - Un Giorno di Regno (Aquarian Opera), Nottingham - Roberto Devereux (a bicentenary celebration of Donizetti’s birth), Renato - Un Ballo in Maschera (Capital Opera), Captain Corcoran - HMS Pinafore (Kentish Opera), Noye - Noye's Fludde (a large community project in Putney), appeared in The Magic of Lehar for Court Opera and sang in The Trio - Trouble in Tahiti and Ben - The Telephone - for JCM Productions - for whom he also appeared in a tour of Tomfoolery including performances at the Chichester and Cheltenham Festivals.
He toured with Crystal Clear Opera, Central Festival Opera and European Chamber Opera singing Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Marcello (La Bohème) and Germont Père (La Traviata) including a Royal Gala in London. He was chosen by Christopher Biggins to join the Holder's Opera Season in Barbados for Tosca (Angelotti/Sciaronne) and a series of concerts. For Riverside Opera he sang Dulcamara (L'elisir d'amore) and Marcello (La Bohème) and for Midsummer Opera Aeneas (Dido and Aeneas), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Lord Enrico Ashton (Lucia de Lammermoor), Rodrigo (Don Carlo), Michele (Il Tabarro), Ping (Turandot) and Jack Rance (La Fanciulla del West) as well as an extensive series of concerts for its sister company Sounds Lyrical. He also sang Albert (Werther) in a partnership with Midsummer Opera at the WEM festival in Provence, France where he returned to sing Hughes (a role especially written for him) in the world première of Simon Milton's Sorbet! Sorbet! at WEM07 Festival.
His other operatic roles have included Lescaut (Manon) and Haudy (Die Soldaten) for English National Opera (covers), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) in two Gala performances with Rosalind Plowright as Cio Cio San at Beaulieu Abbey, Dr Bartolo (Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and Angelotti/Sciaronne (Tosca) for Opera and Concert Productions Ltd in the Middle and Far East where he also sang in a Presidential Gala in Kuala Lumpur and a command performance for the Thai Royal family in Bangkok.
He toured the world on the P&O cruise liners Oriana and Aurora singing Germont Père (La Traviata), Escamillo (Carmen), Danillo (The Merry Widow) and Ko Ko (The Mikado) as well as a large number of varied concerts.
Following this successful cruise he set up Classical Encounters with soprano Sally-Ann Shepherson with the view to performing some of the long forgotten, wonderful melodies of the past.
In 2006 he created the role of George Bateson in the Community Opera: Promised Land, written by Mark Dougherty and Michael Erwin. It opened the Canterbury Festival at the Marlowe Theatre where Trevor returned the following year to work with the newly formed Really Promising Company, singing his first travesty role: Agnes Leadbetter in Kentish Tales - another role especially written for him by Mark Dougherty and Syd Ralph. He returned to work with the RPC as The Chairman and Mayor Sapsea in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and presented highlights from Promised Land and scenes from a new piece (Castle Rackrent) written by Mark Dougherty and Michael Erwin for the Canterbury Festival.
Equally at home on the concert platform, Trevor’s repertoire is varied and extensive. Along with his accompanist Peter Crockford, Trevor has recently presented a series of English Song recitals at the CMP Festival, Brighton and at various venues in and around London.
Lockdown in 2020 was a blow and a boon. He had just started jobsharing at the Royal Opera House and was due to go on full time contract. However the doors of the ROH, in common with many others in the land, closed. The enforced isolation enabled him to get on with learning some songs that had been on his and Peter's 'to do' list for years. Once these songs were learned, the appetite was whetted and they continued exploring other songs. As a theme became aparent they decided the time was ripe to make a long-awaited recording. The recording was made at Henry Wood Hall, and they were lucky enough to have the wonderful Andrew Keener offer to come and produce it for them. They are delighted it has gone well enough for Divine Art to take on the project and release it as part of their catalogue.
