Novelist Kate Mosse leads the West Sussex arts New Year's Honours

“I am delighted to be included in the 2024 New Year’s Honours list, not only for my writing and the Women’s Prize for Fiction – and now non-fiction too – but for services to charity, most of which are local organisations such as the wonderful Festival of Chichester,” Kate said. “I am also proud to be an ambassador for Parkinsons UK.”

Kate is the author of ten novels and short story collections, including the number one bestselling The Joubert Family Chronicles – The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears and The Ghost Ship – as well as the multimillion selling Languedoc Trilogy - Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel - and number one bestselling Gothic fiction including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist's Daughter. Her books have been translated into 38 languages and published in more than 40 countries. She has also written four works of non-fiction – including her memoir about caring An Extra Pair of Hands and Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World, which inspired her first one-woman show and theatre tour. She is also president of the Festival of Chichester.

Also named in the New Year’s Honours is Jonathan Willcocks, musical director of the Chichester Singers who his rewarded for services to music, becoming a medallist of the Order of the British Empire (BEM).

Jonathan said: “I am so delighted to receive this public honour as my long association with The Chichester Singers reflects the fantastic opportunities that the very many amateur choirs provide across the country. For singers of all ages to be able to come together to make music of high quality is truly a life-enhancing thing that brings so many new dimensions into their lives. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity over nearly fifty years of working with so many fine choirs, orchestras and other music organisations both amateur and professional and I hope that this little moment in the sun for me will provide further encouragement to others to enjoy all that music-making can bring.”

One of the UK’s foremost choral conductors and composers, Jonathan was born in Worcester, and after early musical training as a chorister at King’s College Cambridge and an open music scholar at Clifton College he took an honours degree in music from Cambridge University where he held a choral scholarship at Trinity College. He is currently musical director of The Chichester Singers, Guildford Choral Society and the professional chamber orchestra Southern Pro Musica and is Festival Conductor for the Leith Hill Musical Festival. Freelance conducting and workshop engagements have taken him to many parts of the world including the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, China and most of the European countries as well as the United Kingdom. These engagements have seen him conducting concerts in many of the world’s finest concert halls, including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and Perth Concert Hall, Australia as well as closer to home in the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London and Symphony Hall in Birmingham.

In Brighton, an Order of the British Empire (OBE) goes to Marc Steene, founder and director of Outside In. The honour is for services to art.

Outside In provides a platform for artists who encounter significant barriers to the art world due to health, disability, social circumstance or isolation. Outside In provides a digital platform for its artists to show their work and three programmes of activity: artist development, exhibitions, and training. These activities, supported by fundraising and communications, all aim to create a fairer art world by supporting artists, creating opportunities, and influencing organisations.

For many years, Marc was based at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester.