Ruth Webb(nee Hollick) joined Haydock Male Voice Choir in February 2006 and continues to make a huge impact on the choir members with her outstanding talents as a pianist. Ruth hails from Devon and comes from a musical family in which her father encouraged her and her five brothers and sisters to learn to play musical instruments at a very early age. He had always been involved in the world of music and is now the conductor of the Plymouth Youth Brass Band. Ruth started to learn the piano at the age of five, under her father’s guidance. She later took up the tenor horn and the violin and became a member of the Devon Youth Orchestra whilst at school.

When the time came to choose a career, she could not imagine doing anything other than music and after leaving school in 1999, travelled “North” to Manchester to take a degree in music at the Royal Northern College of Music. She graduated in 2003 with a First Class, honours degree and followed this with a Postgraduate Diploma which she was awarded with distinction in June 2004. She stayed on for the following year, as a piano accompaniment scholar, studying with Carole Presland. During her time at R.N.C.M., she also gained a number of individual awards - the Stella Bradshaw Award for Accompaniment, the Bessie Cronshaw/Frost Brownson Award, the pianist's prize in the Alexander Young song competition and Woodwind competition, and the R J Forbes Award for Accompaniment and Repetiteur work.

Whilst in college, Ruth joined with Kathryn Eves to form the Hollick-Eves Duo giving recitals throughout the UK and further afield and performing successfully at competitions and festivals. Amongst their many awards, they won the RNCM Schubert Prize (2002) and the Piano Duo Prize (2003), and the RNCM’s highest performing qualification, the prestigious Professional Performance diploma with Distinction. The Duo is “resting”, at present as both girls pursue their own careers.

Ruth has performed extensively as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist across the UK for many organisations and in renowned venues. She was invited in 2005, to perform in the BBC Promenade Concerts’, “Composer Portrait” Series. She also regularly performs solo spots in our concerts.

Ruth is one of those people lucky enough to be able to combine their great love with a career. She is a full-time musician, working as a tutor and accompanist at the Junior Royal Northern College of Music and for the Yorkshire Young Musicians, based at the Leeds College of Music. She also teaches piano at a school in Manchester and is the rehearsal pianist for the Bolton Choral Union. In her spare time (!) she plays euphonium in the Eccles Band