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Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Founded in the 15th century the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, is undoubtedly one of the world’s best known choral groups - every Christmas Eve, millions of people worldwide tune into A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. This service has been broadcast each year by the BBC since 1928. While the choir exists primarily to sing at the daily church services of King’s College Chapel, its worldwide fame and reputation, enhanced by its many recordings, has led to invitations to perform throughout the world, and to an extensive international tour schedule.
In recent seasons the Choir has travelled throughout Europe as well as to the United States, South America, Australia and Asia-Pacific. Performances have been given at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Settembre Musicale in Turin, Teatro alla Pergola in Florence, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Gothenburg Church Music Festival, Stuttgart Barock Festival, Istanbul International Music Festival, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Seoul Arts Center, and the Singapore Esplanade, to name just a few.
The Choir also performs extensively in the United Kingdom, has appeared regularly at all the major halls in London and in the regions, and enjoys performing in United Kingdom Festivals throughout the year. Recent and future British performances include the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, Newbury Spring, York Early Music, Norfolk & Norwich, Aldeburgh and return invitations to Manchester and Birmingham amongst others. The Choir, which appears frequently with symphony orchestras, singing with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms in 2005, closed its 2005/6 season performing with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican and gives an annual Christmas concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. In addition the Choir has a close relationship with the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) and other early music ensembles including Florilegium and Fretwork.
In the 2008/9 season and the future the Choir’s many international appearances include the Flanders Festival in Gent, Palace of Arts in Budapest, Stresa Festival, both Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Sacred Music Festival in the Vatican City and a return visit to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The Choir made its first ever visit to South America in December 2007 performing in Sao Paulo and San Carlos. Following acclaimed tours of the United States in December 2005 and April 2008 King’s will return to the United States for Christmas concerts in December 2010. Future plans for the Choir involve a European summer festival tour, a return visit to the Far East (Korea, Singapore, Japan and other venues) and another visit to Australia.
The Choir records exclusively for EMI Classics and is delighted that this relationship is continuing into the future. In the Autumn of 2008, they release two recordings of English music following on from their successful 2007 early English music collaboration with the viol ensemble Fretwork I Heard a Voice – music by Tudor composers Gibbons, Tomkins and Weelkes. On Christmas Day, a recording of new carols commissioned annually by King’s College, has received tremendous critical acclaim with BBC Music Magazine commenting “King’s College, Cambridge, is a byword for the very best in Christmas music”. In 2004/5 the Choir's recording of Rachmaninov Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom was nominated for a Grammy Award, the critic in The Gramophone magazine greeting the recording as “without a shadow of doubt, a triumph”, adding that “there is no comparable rival to this disc”. The latest release is Handel's Messiah in which the choir was joined by AAM and an array of soloists in a performance that was broadcast live from the Chapel to cinemas across Europe and North America.
Recent additions to the discography include a recording of Brahms’ Requiem in the composer’s unusual arrangement for Choir, soloists and piano (four hands) (“… superbly sung and beautifully balanced … a triumph” – BBC Music Magazine), a Purcell disc Music for Queen Mary with AAM (“In the repertoire on this new disc... Cleobury, King’s College, and the AAM prove currently unbeatable” – BBC Music Magazine), John Rutter’s Gloria with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, an album of Gregorian chant, several discs of baroque music with the AAM, Rachmaninov’s Vespers (which won the first ever Classical Brit Award), and a live recording of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. A DVD, Anthems from King’s, has been released following a DVD of Carols from King’s, which also contains historic footage of the Choir.
The Choir of King’s College owes its existence to King Henry VI who, in founding the College in 1441, envisaged the daily singing of services in his magnificent chapel, one of the jewels of Britain’s cultural and architectural heritage. As the pre-eminent representative of the great British church music tradition the daily services remain the Choir’s raison d’être, and are an important part of the lives of its sixteen choristers, and the fourteen choral scholars and two organ scholars who study in the College itself.
Stephen Cleobury
Stephen Cleobury is associated with two of Britain’s most famous choirs. As Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge and Conductor Laureate of the BBC Singers, he also works with leading symphony orchestras and period instrument ensembles. He ranges across a broad repertoire, from Gregorian chant to newly composed works. He has particularly championed contemporary music and at King’s has commissioned a carol annually for A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. In March 2005, he instigated the first Easter Festival of Music at King’s. He has premièred many works with the BBC Singers, notably Giles Swayne Havoc at the Royal Albert Hall at the Proms, and Edward Cowie Gaia, both with the Endymion Ensemble. In 2004, also at the Proms, he gave the British première of Harrison Birtwistle Ring Dance of the Nazarene with the same forces. Subsequently, he premièred Errollyn Wallen Our English Heart in Portsmouth with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Singers as part of the Nelson celebrations.
As Conductor of the Cambridge University Music Society (CUMS), Cleobury has directed the major works for chorus and orchestra as well as symphonic repertoire. Recent CUMS performances have included Mahler Resurrection Symphony, Boston; Berlioz Requiem, Ely Cathedral; Dvořák Stabat Mater, King’s Chapel; Vaughan Williams A Sea Symphony, Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford; and Tippett A Child of Our Time, Verdi Requiem and Handel Solomon, King's Chapel.
He frequently appears in the United Kingdom and abroad as a conductor, leader of conducting workshops and solo organist. As a conductor he has worked with many ensembles, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic, Southbank Sinfonia, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Endymion and His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts. Of late, performances as an organ recitalist have taken him to venues as diverse as Hong Kong, Haderslev Cathedral in Denmark and Salt Lake's huge Latter-day Saints Conference Center. He has directed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City, recorded with the BBC Singers a CD of Tippett’s choral music, and conducted the Israel Camerata in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland in Dublin.
Programme
28.7
Missa ‘Euge bone’ Gloria
Tye
Videte miraculum
Tallis
Laetentur caeli
Byrd
Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV541
Bach
Vox Dicentis
E.W. Naylor
Let all Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Bairstow
My Soul, there is a Country
Parry
Hosanna to the Son of David
Weelkes
This is the Record of John
Gibbons
Rejoice, Rejoice and Singe
Tomkins
Paean
Howells
Come, Holy Ghost
Harvey
Hymn to the Virgin
Britten
Mass in G Minor
Vaughan Williams
29.7
Lobet den Herrn*
Bach
Hear my Prayer, O Lord
Purcell
Jehova, quam multi sunt
Purcell
Voluntary on the Old 100th Psalm in A, Z721
Purcell
1st movement from Sonata No. 3 in A, Op. 65
Mendelssohn
Richte mich, Gott
Mendelssohn
Hör mein bitten
Mendelssohn
Organ Concerto in F, Op. 4, No. 4*
Handel
Missa Sancti Johannis de Deo (Kleine Orgelmesse)*
Haydn
Komm, Jesu, komm*
Bach
Organist: Peter Stevens
*Strings: The Hong Kong Virtuosi (29/7 Only)
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