On 13th and 14th of July Spinnakerettes were coached by the amazing Stuart Sides. Stuart is a singing teacher and vocal, performance and presentation coach. He is a chorus director and quartet singer with numerous national and international medals and championships.
Stuart has had a varied vocal life since he first started singing in church choirs when he was 6. In 1978 (when he was 9) he started in barbershop but he has since then also sung in mixed voice a cappella groups and classical choirs but most notably he has sung in four UK National Champion barbershop quartets in 1993, 1994, 2004 & 2005 (bass, baritone, lead and baritone) going on to represent his country in the International Championships each time and since moving to Holland has sung in 3 Dutch Champion Quartets in 2008 (Xperience, baritone), 2011 (Trademark, baritone) and 2015 (Maelstrom, tenor). This last quartet puts Stuart in a very small group of people who have won quartet gold medals in all four parts!
His directing career began in 1984 (at 15 years old) with a barbershop chorus. Again he achieved major success in 1998 taking Capital Connection to victory becoming the UK LABBS National Ladies Barbershop Chorus Champions and then once again in 2006 directing Signature to become the smallest chorus (just 24 singers) to win the National Ladies championship. In the Netherlands, Stuart took iSing to national chorus silver and bronze medals and in 2013 directed Sound Waves to National Gold AND European Silver Medals as well as other International invitation Gold medals in Ireland 2013 and Spain 2014.
In April 2015 Stuart started a new women’s chorus, No Borders Show Chorus, with the unique characteristic that it’s open across multiple countries and is currently nearly 70 strong with members from The Netherlands and Germany. Stuart is a regular coach for singers, quartets and choruses across Europe and regularly educates at Harmony Colleges and Director’s Colleges in the Netherlands and Germany.
