NYCOS Appoints First Alum Chief Executive

NYCOS APPOINTS FIRST ALUM CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Kenneth Boyd to become new CEO of powerhouse choral charity

The National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCOS) has announced that one of its former youth singers, Glaswegian Kenneth Boyd, is to become its new Chief Executive. Boyd, who started touring with NYCOS at the age of 17 in 2003, is currently Senior Producer with the national singing network, and will step into its Chief Executive role on April 21.

He takes over at a significant juncture for the music-making charity, which recently secured further Multi-Year Funding from Creative Scotland. The 2025 National Boys and Girls Choirs are set to convene later this month, with 200 members taking part in intensive residential courses led by Artistic Director Christopher Bell before debut concerts in Linlithgow and Edinburgh. Meanwhile more than 1,100 young NYCOS singers are rehearsing in weekly sessions up and down the country, preparing for a series of fifteen summer recitals which will all showcase the progress they’ve made during a busy year of training.

Regular performances are a key part of NYCOS’ winning formula: many of its members started singing in local community venues at age seven and have ended up performing to great acclaim on world famous stages, including Carnegie Hall, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Royal Albert Hall. This year is no exception: the 107-strong National Youth Choir of Scotland, made up of Scotland’s most talented young vocalists, will once again open the Edinburgh International Festival in August, featuring alongside the Monteverdi Choir and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus in an eight hour performance of John Tavener’s Veil of the Temple. In a test of their endurance, sopranos and altos from the same choir will also perform Holst’s The Planets at the Usher Hall three days later, under the baton of London Philharmonic Orchestra principal conductor Edward Gardner.