# Suzi Digby

Susan Elizabeth Digby, Baroness Eatwell OBE (née Watts; born 1 July 1958), known as Suzi Digby, is a British choral conductor and music educator.

## Early life

Born in Japan as Susan Elizabeth Watts, she attended Francis Holland School, Baker Street, before studying music, including piano and singing, at King's College London. She lived in Mexico and the Philippines, and then spent 12 years in Hong Kong where she had a television series as well as radio broadcasting, teaching and performing. In 1990 she was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship, which she used to travel and study in Finland, Hungary, Canada and the USA, focusing on methods of choral training and music education. She also trained with Péter Erdei, Head of Choral Studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.

## Career

In 1993 she founded a music education charity, The Voices Foundation, whose methodology is based on that of Hungarian music educator Zoltán Kodály.
From 1996 to 1998, Digby was musical director of Rosslyn Hill Chapel Choir, and from 1998 to 2000 director of the Middlesex Bach Choir. In 1998 she launched 'Singing Schools', a 5-year programme in South Africa involving schools in Soweto and Johannesburg.
In 2000, Digby was invited to become a member of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, where she serves as chairman of the arts category.
In 2003, she founded Voce. She was founding musical director of the infant programme of the Finchley Children's Music Group and co-founded Music Box, the Bristol-based children's opera group.
In 2008, she served as a judge on the BBC show Last Choir Standing. She has also been a judge for the Coleraine Music Festival in Northern Ireland and Sainsbury's Choir of the Year. Digby works on radio and television and presented for BBC Wales TV including BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.
In 2010, she founded Vocal Futures, a foundation to inspire young people to engage with classical music. In November 2011, Vocal Futures staged a performance of the St Matthew Passion at Ambika P3, conducted by Digby.
She is a former president of the Incorporated Society of Musicians.
Suzi Digby OBE founded the National Arts/Education organisation The Voices Foundation (UK primary music education charity, training hundreds of thousands of Primary teachers and impacting several million children since 1992). She founded and runs the following organisations: Voce Chamber Choir; Vocal Futures (nurturing young [ages 16–22] audiences for classical music); Singing4Success (leadership and 'Accelerated Learning' for corporates); and The London Youth Choir (a pyramid of ten choirs, ages 8–22, serving all ethnic communities and religions in London's thirty-three boroughs).
February 2016 saw the public launch of her professional vocal consort, multi award-winning ORA Singers (now the leading commissioners of new choral music in the world).
Digby is also a visiting professor at the University of Southern California (Choral Studies).
In 2014, she launched her Californian professional vocal consort, The Golden Bridge, commissioning Californian composers to ‘reflect’ English Renaissance master works. Digby is, by profession, an international choral conductor and music educator.

## Personal life

Susan Watts married in 1980 The Hon. Henry Noel Kenelm Digby, eldest son of Edward Digby, 12th Baron Digby. She has two children from her first marriage. They divorced in 2001.
In July 2006 she married John Eatwell, Baron Eatwell, President of Queens' College, Cambridge.
In 2007, Digby was appointed OBE for services to music education.