Tyndale Community Gospel Choir

Lydia Stone

Choir Director

Lydia sang from toddlerhood, passing through formal training and a choral scholarship at Cambridge University before ending up at her musical and spiritual home - Gospel music.

Inspired by hearing the UK’s best Gospel acts at the 606 jazz club in London, she was then invited to join a Gospel choir set up by Miko Gierdroyc and Tracey Jane Campbell in 2005. This developed into Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir, a London based choir that composes, performs and provides education about Gospel music to this day. Lydia stopped singing with them in 2018 to allow more balance in her life as a psychologist and mum.

With several years directing TCGC under her belt and having completed a diploma in singing teaching with BAST, voice teaching is now a central and inextricable part of her life (www.lydiastonesinging.com)

Mark Robertshaw

Musical Director

Mark has been playing the piano for around 40 years. The son of a minister, Mark started his musical life in a church setting and whilst at university in Oxford, he became infected with a love of Gospel, Blues and Jazz which has become his main passion as a musician ever since.

Mark has coordinated and accompanied a number of Gospel choirs and has played in a number of function bands over the last 30 years as well as playing regularly in his local church. In his day job, Mark is a director of an IT company and enjoys spending time with his wife and 4 children in his spare time, dragging them out on long country walks.

Grace Stewart

Soprano Section Co-Leader

Music and singing has been a love of mine from a very young age. I started taking piano lessons at about six years old and stuck with it ever since.

At about 15 years old i got my first taste of singing up front in our church youth band. 

At about 18 years old I started taking proper singing lessons and since then I've sung in various church worship bands and enjoy busking with my dad. As an adult I started learning guitar and writing songs too.

I first heard about Tyndale Gospel Choir in 2019 because I wanted to try something different and now i love it!

Sara Taylor

Soprano Section Leader

Sara grew up watching her family being part of the church choir and fell in love with harmony from a young age. She has been part of the worship band and choir at church since the age of 16 and also took singing lessons from jazz singing teachers in her hometown of Barcelona and at Ruskin College, Oxford and have been involved in gospel choirs for over 25 years. She finds the most joy in singing and loves improvising harmonies and finds being part of a choir uplifting, no matter what size, and loves swaying to the rhythm of gospel music !

Gordy Munday

Alto Section Co-Leader

Gordy is a talented and accomplished singer with a wealth of experience in band, choir and solo settings. She studied performing arts in London where she spent time working with leading vocal and dance coaches David and Carrie Grant. She then trained at the Nexus Institute of Creative Arts with a specialism in vocals.

After this she had the opportunity to tour throughout England and Europe as part of an Oxford based band. Utilising her training and experience Gordy has worked as a singing teacher over the last 20 years and has developed a love and passion for music.

As such she is very excited to be taking a leading part in the Tyndale Gospel Choir. In her day job, Gordy works for Tyndale Community School as an administrator and in her spare time enjoys spending time with her family and eating good food with good friends.

Maddalena Ponticelli

Alto Section Co-Leader

Maddalena is Italian and moved to Oxford with her family in 2020. She grew up singing from a young age in school, church, with friends and at home.

Over the years she has lived in a number of different countries and cities and joined a choir in each of them. Mostly this was singing classical/baroque styles along with some pop music but she has more recently discovered the world of Gospel music and this has now become her passion.

She joined the Tyndale Community Gospel Choir as soon as it reopened post Covid and she’s been loving it ever since.

Sally Snelson

Tenor Section Co-Leader

Sally has been singing from an early age, first performing as the title role in her primary schools production of The Happy Prince. Sally went on to study a BA is music at Southampton university, specialising in medieval and early music and voice. While at Southampton Sally became involved in the gospel choir society ‘Jazzmanics’ and throughly embraced the joy and life gospel music brought to her life.

Since leaving university Sally has been involved in leading worship at Oxford Community Church as a backing singer while working as a foster carer. Sally was involved in Tyndale gospel choir in 2019 and is so excited to bring life and joy to the local community through a love of music.

Grace Camfield

Tenor Section Co-Leader

Grace comes from a musical family and plays a few different instruments. She loved singing from an early age, though wasn't very good at it at first! But it suddenly clicked when she was about 16 and she started singing in church, in school and then in an a cappella choir at university. 

Outside of choir, Grace works in international development and has lived in Malawi, France and Madagascar. She is a huge cricket fan and enjoys playing too. 

She has loved being part of the Tyndale Community Gospel Choir since she moved back to Oxford in 2023, and enjoys the challenge of exercising her lower vocal range by singing in the wonderful tenor section.