Founded in the fifteenth 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 in to A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which has been broadcast each year by the BBC since 1928. While the choir exists primarily to sing the daily services in 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 US, South America, Australia and Asia-Pacific. Performances have been given at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Settembre Musicale (Turin), Santa Cecilia (Rome), Stresa Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Gothenburg Church Music Festival, Stuttgart Barock Festival, Istanbul International Music Festival, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Centre (Taiwan), Seoul Arts Centre, 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 UK Festivals throughout the year. Recent Festival appearances have seen the Choir at the City of London Festival, St. Albans International Organ Festival, Windsor Festival, Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, Newbury Spring Festival, York Early Music, Norfolk & Norwich, and Aldeburgh. There have also been return invitations to Manchester (Bridgewater Hall), Birmingham (Symphony Hall) and Cardiff (St. David’s Hall) amongst others. The Choir appears frequently with symphony orchestras: it sang 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 Royal Albert Hall. In addition, the Choir has a close relationship with the Academy of Ancient Music and other early music ensembles including Florilegium and Fretwork. In 2009, the Choir was delighted to join other Cambridge artists, ensembles and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis in a BBC Prom to mark Cambridge University's 800th anniversary ... read full bio
Founded in the fifteenth 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 in to A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which has been broadcast each year by the BBC since 1928. While the choir exists primarily to sing the daily services in 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 US, South America, Australia and Asia-Pacific. Performances have been given at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), Settembre Musicale (Turin), Santa Cecilia (Rome), Stresa Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Gothenburg Church Music Festival, Stuttgart Barock Festival, Istanbul International Music Festival, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Centre (Taiwan), Seoul Arts Centre, 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 UK Festivals throughout the year. Recent Festival appearances have seen the Choir at the City of London Festival, St. Albans International Organ Festival, Windsor Festival, Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, Newbury Spring Festival, York Early Music, Norfolk & Norwich, and Aldeburgh. There have also been return invitations to Manchester (Bridgewater Hall), Birmingham (Symphony Hall) and Cardiff (St. David’s Hall) amongst others. The Choir appears frequently with symphony orchestras: it sang 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 Royal Albert Hall. In addition, the Choir has a close relationship with the Academy of Ancient Music and other early music ensembles including Florilegium and Fretwork. In 2009, the Choir was delighted to join other Cambridge artists, ensembles and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis in a BBC Prom to mark Cambridge University's 800th anniversary.
In the 2010/11 season and the future the Choir’s many international appearances take it to Musikfest Bremen, Hildesheim, Osnabrueck, Halberstadt and Merseberg in Germany, return visits to the Flanders Festival in Gent, Palace of Arts in Budapest and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The Choir made a return visit this year to the Far East to Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Future plans for the Choir involve a European summer festival tour, a return visit to the US and to Australia.
Palm Sunday 2009 saw King's College undertake a unique project in collaboration with Opus Arte and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Under the baton of Stephen Cleobury, and accompanied by the Academy of Ancient Music, the Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah in King's College Chapel was screened live by satellite to cinemas throughout the UK, mainland Europe and Northern America. This was the first ever live broadcast of a choral concert anywhere in the world and was undertaken as part of the King's Easter Festival as well as to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel and the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University. A CD and DVD of this performance were released by EMI Classics and are now available. "Stephen Cleobury's view of Handel's oratorio unfolds naturally according to the mood and spirit of its text ... Recommended" (Classic FM Magazine).
The Choir enjoys a prolific relationship with EMI Classics and its July 2009 release England, My England brings together many English choral favorites including Zadok the Priest and Spem in alium. In November 2009, EMI released the 80th anniversary broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, including new carols commissioned annually by King’s College. The disc 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 Gramophone magazine greeting the recording as “without a shadow of doubt, a triumph”, adding that “there is no comparable rival to this disc”.
Recent additions to the discography include I Heard a Voice, featuring music by Tudor composers Gibbons, Tomkins and Weelkes ("[T]he programme begins & ends in splendour ... the famous choir sings with full-bodied tone and unfailing precision." – Gramophone); a recording of Brahms’ Requiem in the composer’s arrangement for Choir, soloists and piano four hands (“… superbly sung and beautifully balanced … a triumph” – BBC Music Magazine); a Purcell disc of Music for Queen Mary with the Academy of Ancient Music; a recording of John Rutter’s Gloria with the CBSO; and a recording of Rachmaninov’s Vespers, which won the first ever Classical Brit Award. A DVD, Anthems from King’s, was recently 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 Choir regards the singing of the daily services as its raison d’être, and these are an important part of the lives of its sixteen choristers, fourteen choral scholars and two organ scholars who study in the College itself.
The choristers are educated at King’s College School in Cambridge and receive generous scholarships from King’s College to help pay for their education. The School has 340 boys and girls aged 4 to 13 and the choristers are selected at an annual audition when they are in Year 2 or 3 at school. A chorister joins the school as he enters Year 4. For full information about King’s College School and the life of a Chorister, please see www.kcs.cambs.sch.uk.
Last updated December 2009. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.
