"Richard Tanner is an exceptionally energetic and entrepreneurial musician. He has the ability to inspire and to encourage in a way that produces amazing results. He is immensely gifted as a choir trainer and orchestral director, is an excellent administrator and a very supportive colleague. He leads with skill and diplomacy whilst working collaboratively across departments to achieve results which are much enhanced because he thinks out of the box. At Blackburn he seized every opportunity to relate the music to the life of the cathedral at all levels in a way that was enlightened and enlightening. This saw some imaginative projects - especially that which related David Fanshawe's African Sanctus to the cathedral's cross-cultural and interfaith work, and another seeing the first performance outside London of James Whitbourn's Annelies (an oratorio based on Anne Frank's diary) at a time when the cathedral was hosting the Anne Frank exhibition. His tenure saw a huge expansion in the range and depth of the cathedral's music - and its reputation - and a level of opportunity in terms of tours and broadcasts, workshops and masterclasses, concerts and educational visits which were hugely beneficial.
I cannot speak too highly of the standards that he achieved or the way in which he built a strong team to ensure enhanced capacity and levels of output."
Canon Chris Chivers, Principal of Westcott House Cambridge
formerly Canon Chancellor of Blackburn Cathedral