Choir Report

Graham Ross | Fellow and Director of Music

The 2022–23 academic year saw the Choir of Clare College return to a near pre-pandemic schedule, with a busy and successful year both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Much of the year focused on a major musical celebration of the College’s 50^th anniversary of co-education, with many alumnæ returning to give recitals, workshops and performances, often alongside our current undergraduate musicians. Outside of the academic terms the Choir performed in Cambridge, Long Melford, Bradford-on-Avon and London’s St John’s, Smith Square, and overseas across the Netherlands (December 2022) and the United States of America (April 2023), including performances in Duke University Chapel in North Carolina and Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville.

The Director of Music has been supported by the College’s two Organ Scholars, Samuel Jones (2020) (Sir William McKie Senior Organ Scholar) and Daniel Blaze (2022) (Junior Organ Scholar). Many of the regular Chapel Services have been supplemented by new commissions and premières as well as collaborations with student instrumentalists and other professional musicians.

The Choir began the new academic year with a recording in Chapel with alumnus Sam Swallow (1998) before embarking on Michaelmas Term. In November the Choir recorded a special Epiphany service in Chapel that was broadcast on the BBC in January 2023. As part of this service the Choir gave the première of the first of four new commissions marking the 50^th anniversary of co-education: a wonderful new work for a cappella choir entitled The Magi by the British composer Cecilia McDowall, who joined us for the first performance. The Choir also joined the Choir of Gonville and Caius College for a joint service of Choral Vespers, before presenting its two hugely popular Advent Carol Services in Chapel. As ever, traditional works sat alongside lesser-familiar settings of texts old and new, celebrating a wonderful mix of male and female composers.

December 2022 brought a return of the Choir’s busy schedule of concerts in the UK and abroad, with A Spotless Rose programme being performed nine times across the UK and the Netherlands. This was preceded by a spectacular performance of J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Trinity College Chapel with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and distinguished soloists Mary Bevan, Iestyn Davies, James Gilchrist and Neal Davies. As well as concerts in Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford and in Clare College Chapel, the Choir was also joined by the newly-formed Wiltshire Youth Choir during a concert at the Wiltshire Music Centre. The Choir finished its concerts in the UK with the flagship festive event at London’s St John’s, Smith Square with many Friends of Clare Music and representatives of the College in attendance. Following an excellent performance and friend-filled reception, the Choir met early the next morning for a return tour of the Netherlands, with sell-out concerts in Breda, Vlissingen, Utrecht, Amstelveen and Nijmegen all receiving standing ovations.

Lent Term 2023 was the culmination of the Choir’s celebration of the 50^th anniversary of co-education – which in turn celebrated half a century of Clare’s mixed-voice choir. To mark the major impact this had on the College and its music-making, the Choir performed a special term of music old and new, inviting back many of Clare’s distinguished musical alumni. The Choir sang a number of works specially written for the College over the last 50 years, including the music of John Tavener, Tarik O’Regan, Lilly Vadaneaux (2021), Herbert Howells, Lucy Walker, Sigurður Sævarsson, Nico Muhly, and John Rutter (1964) among others. Two further new commissions were performed during the term, both by Clare alumnæ who read Music: a new setting of the Magnificat by Héloïse Werner (2010), and Eja Mater, fons amoris by Josephine Stephenson (2008). As part of the Sunday pre-Evensong recital series, the Choir welcomed back alumnæ composer Freya Waley-Cohen (2008), cellist and composer Zoë Martlew (1987), soprano Elin Manahan-Thomas (1995), lutenist Elizabeth Kenny (1985), flautist Jane Mitchell (2000), oboist Sasha Calin (2002), violinists Margaret Faultless (1980) and Naomi Warburton (2017), violist Kathryn Jourdan (1985), and cellists Jane Salmon (1977) and Emily Smith (2003).

The Choir also hosted the biennial Clare College Song Competition, which received a very high standard of entries from across the University. Head Adjudicator and celebrated tenor James Gilchrist gave a wonderful masterclass and chaired the panel for a hotly-contested final, which was won by soprano Katherine Gregory and pianist Madeleine Brown.

Preceding the Easter Term, the Choir set off on its first tour to the USA since 2019 – our third attempt after previous plans were thwarted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The tour tied in with the album launch for the Choir’s latest release for Harmonia Mundi: Rolling River: American Choral. Beginning in Vermont, the Choir gave a performance in Middlebury before travelling to North Carolina for concerts at Duke University and Davidson, heading to Tennessee for concerts in Knoxville, Memphis and Nashville. Rolling River was released worldwide in April 2023, and is available for sale from the Choir’s website.

The Clare Choir Alumni Association enjoyed its own celebration with a special public concert. On stage at West Road Concert Hall, the current Choir sang the new commissions of Cecilia McDowall, Héloïse Werner and Josephine Stephenson, before a massed choir and orchestra of over 120 Clare musicians past and present came together to perform Tallis’s Spem in alium, conducted by former Director of Music Timothy Brown; Undine Smith Moore’s We shall walk through the valley in peace and Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, conducted by current Director of Music Graham Ross (2003); and the fourth and final new commission of the year from former Director of Music and Honorary Fellow John Rutter, who set three Shakespeare texts in his new Bard’s Eye View for choir and strings.

Clare musicians continue to feature across all works of life, and this was nowhere more prominent than at the Coronation service of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey in May 2023, which featured seven Clare alumni: Assistant Organist Matthew Jorysz (Clare Organ Scholar 2012–15), Canon Theologian Revd Dr James Hawkey (Dean of Clare 2015–18), former Director of Music John Rutter who arranged much of the music, plus singers in the Westminster Abbey Choir – Lay Vicars Mark Dobell (1993) and Jonathan Brown (1993) – and in the Monteverdi Choir – Kate Symonds-Joy (Clare Choir 2005) and Chris Webb (2009).

None of the Choir’s activities would be possible without the continued support of the Friends of Clare Music and individual donors whose donations continue to allow the students at Clare to enjoy some of the best musical opportunities available.

In June 2023 the Choir returned to the Beaminster Festival and Stroud Arts Festival, to perform music from Dufay to English part-songs, and also made its debut at the Thaxted Festival to perform Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil in the 150^th anniversary year of the composer’s birth. To mark the end of the academic year the Choir recorded a new album – details to be revealed in due course!

As ever, we continue to aim for the very highest quality of musicianship in all that we do, providing members of the Choir with an unrivalled education matched with superb opportunities. It remains a great privilege to work with such talented individuals and colleagues and to be the current custodian of this tradition.