Ellie Carter, 2016

Ellie read Music at Clare. She is now Customer Success Manager at Feefo.

Who was your greatest Clare influence and why?

My greatest Clare influence is John Rutter. He was Director of Music at the College for many years and is now one of the greatest composers of choral music alive today - through his compositions and other work, he's done so much for bringing the joys of church music to those who possibly wouldn't otherwise have been able to experience this type of music. On a personal level, he was still heavily involved with Clare Choir whilst I was Organ Scholar there, and he was so inspirational to work with on our recordings and many concerts as well. 

Ellie's Story

My first recollections of Clare are from the age of 8, when my parents took me on a day out to Cambridge. We’d owned the Rutter CD ‘Carols from Clare’ (which still gets played every Christmas without fail in our house), so we had chosen Clare as the college we wanted to explore that day. Still now I remember the sense of wonder I felt back then as we walked round the gardens and admired the understated beauty of the college. This feeling never went away in the three years I spent there as Organ Scholar ten years later – I always felt immense pride that such an esteemed, musical and famously friendly College had accepted me to read music.

My time at Clare was heavily defined by the countless musical opportunities I experienced whilst there. As the Organ Scholar, I learnt so many skills that have served me very well since (learning to focus on a task for a long period of time, how to work well with others, and how to process multiple tasks in the most efficient way are some examples). Alongside our regular tri-weekly chapel services, we toured the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and Mexico, working closely with Graham Ross and other hugely talented professional musicians on our recordings and concerts, which was a huge privilege.

In particular, I look back at my first choir tour in 2016 (one of our Christmas tours to the Netherlands) with particular fondness – I made many of my closest friends on this tour, and many of them will be singing some of the same repertoire at my wedding this December! Needless to say, as well as the high quality music-making, all of our tours included countless hilarious moments (many hours of bananagrams whilst waiting for delayed flights, a lot of very niche choir blogs and chat, and some dubious homestay arrangements… to give you an idea!).

As well as the music, the really key other aspect of my time at Clare that will stay with me forever are the people who lived and worked there, and who really made the college feel like a home during term time. A special shout-out has to go to one of the bedders Viv, who effortlessly brightened up everyone’s day when she stopped by, Jamie Hawkey and Mark Smith, the Deans of the College in my time who were always so approachable with any problem, and of course Graham Ross, who always made chapel music a massively enjoyable and rewarding thing to be a part of.

I will always be so grateful for my time at Clare, and I can say with a lot of confidence that my years there have shaped many of my values today. Integrity, kindness, self-belief and having fun were all a central part of life at the college, and I continue to aim to live by these values in everything I do today.