Choir Report

2021–22 was another successful and fulfilling year for music at Clare. The Choir excelled not only in regular liturgical Chapel services, but also on the national and international stage. Despite facing the ongoing challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Choir’s Chapel services continued uninterrupted. It was a pleasure to welcome back external members of the congregation into Clare Chapel once again, and the Chapel’s livestreaming equipment enabled us to share our music and liturgy not only with the College community but also with alumni, friends and supporters around the world.

The Choir continues to provide an enriching, educational experience for its Choral Scholars and Volunteers, with thrice-weekly services during the academic terms and in its external schedule during vacations. The 2021–22 academic year presented a concert schedule that took the Choir to venues across the UK and abroad (see details below). The Director of Music was supported by the College’s two Organ Scholars, George Gillow (Sir William McKie Senior Organ Scholar) and Samuel Jones (Junior Organ Scholar). Regular Chapel services were once again invigorated with new commissions and premières, and collaborations with student instrumentalists. The Director of Music continues to programme lesser-performed works by female composers and composers from ethnic minorities.

During the summer vacation of 2021, the Choir delivered its first live concerts since the start of the pandemic, performing the programme 'A place where angels sing' in Leamington Spa, Hay-on-Wye and Crediton. The Choir then completed recording sessions for its latest album Ice Land: The Eternal Music focussing on Icelandic music of the last half century and featuring the world première recording of Sigurður Sævarsson’s Requiem alongside works by Jón Leifs, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and Snorri Sigfús Birgisson amongst others. The Choir was joined by soprano Carolyn Sampson and The Dmitri Ensemble and once again the album was produced, engineered and edited by former Director of Music and Honorary Fellow John Rutter, to whom the Choir and College are much indebted.

To mark the end of the 2020–21 academic year, in September 2021 the Choir joined forces with the Britten Sinfonia for a recording of previously unrecorded music by Vaughan Williams for Albion Records (released in June 2022), ahead of a much-anticipated tour to Iceland. The first of our rescheduled pandemic cancellations, this tour marked the Choir’s return to the international stage, and the first overseas tour by an Oxbridge choir since the start of the pandemic. The Choir was finally able to perform at Reykjavík’s superb Hallgrímskirkja, with their latest programme 'A New Song', as well as a morning Mass. The Choir were fortunate enough to visit some of Iceland’s best-known tourist spots and joined forces with local photographer, Yael Bar Cohen, for a publicity photoshoot ahead of the Choir’s Icelandic album release in February 2022.

In December 2021, following a fine performance in Cambridge of J. S. Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Dixit Dominus with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and soloists (which was also filmed for the OAE Player), the Choir embarked on a UK Christmas tour with their programme 'What Sweeter Music', performing in Colyer Fergusson Hall, Canterbury, at St Peter & St Paul’s Church in Clare, Suffolk, and at the Choir’s flagship performance in London at St John’s, Smith Square, with many Friends of Clare Music and representatives of the College in attendance. With the disappointment of the Choir’s 2020 series of Christmas concerts falling victim to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was wonderful to have Clare Choir’s famous partridge firmly back in its pear tree.

Despite the challenges of rising cases of Covid-19, Lent Term 2022 proved to be an exciting time for Clare Choir. In February 2022, our much anticipated album Ice Land: The Eternal Music was released worldwide, receiving some 5-star reviews, reaching No. 2 in the UK Specialist Classical Charts and selected as Classic FM’s Album of the Week. In the same month the Choir was thrilled to give a sell-out performance of J. S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, led by Clare alumna Margaret Faultless (1980), and an outstanding line-up of soloists including Clare alumni Nicholas Mulroy (1995) and Dominic Sedgwick (2008). This was another resurrection of a concert previously cancelled as a result of the pandemic. In March 2022, the Choir was hosted by our counterpart at St John’s College, Cambridge, for a joint service led by Andrew Nethsingha. We were also delighted to host our first visiting Choir since before the pandemic, the Choir of Brentwood School, for an 80-person strong Choral Evensong. The term was rounded off by a special service for Passiontide, with a collaboration with Arculo Consort of Viols, before the Choir travelled to Denmark for performances during Holy Week.

The Clare Choir Alumni Association enjoyed another successful year, with the return of the Association’s Evensong and Dinner in May 2022 for the first time since 2019. Former choristers from as far back as 1967 joined the current Choir in a rousing Evensong followed by a formal dinner in the Gillespie Centre.

In June 2022 the Choir returned to Southend-on-Sea to perform a selection of Anglo-American a cappella choral music in their programme Atlantic Exchange, ahead of a recording a new album of American choral works, including works by Nico Muhly, Samuel Barber, Caroline Shaw and Leonard Bernstein. The Choir is much indebted to John Rutter, former Director of Music and Honorary Fellow, who kindly offered to produce engineer and edit the album. To mark the end of the academic year, the Choir made its debut performance at the Warwick Choral Festival with a beautiful choral programme celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vaughan Williams alongside motets and anthems from England and America.

None of the achievements of the musical community at Clare would be possible without the extraordinary hard work of both the Head of the Chapel Office, Nicola Robertson, and the Choir Administrator, Hannah Ambrose, who assisted the work of the Dean and Director of Music tirelessly – especially so during the last academic year as they continued to plan around the endlessly changing landscape. The Choir is fortunate to receive ongoing representation from record label Harmonia Mundi and artist agents Ikon Arts Management, and from the ongoing support of benefactors, Friends of Clare Music and individual donors whose donations enable the students at Clare to experience some of the very best musical opportunities available.

In the 2022–23 academic year, in addition to the commitment of serving the liturgy in Chapel through our regular schedule of choral services, the Choir will perform J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Trinity College Chapel with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under the direction of the Director of Music, as well as concert performances throughout the UK in Wiltshire, Bedford, Barnes, Leamington Spa, Thaxted and St John’s, Smith Square, London. Overseas, the Choir will retun to the Netherlands in December 2022 performing in Breda, Vlissingen, Amstelveen, Haarlem and Nijmegen. In 2023, plans are afoot for a return to the United States of America with concerts across the Southeast.

The 2022–23 academic year marks the 50th Anniversary of co-education at Clare, and alongside a term-long celebration in Lent 2023, the Choir looks forward to inviting back members of its Alumni Association for a special concert in West Road Concert Hall on 7 May 2023 featuring a new commission by John Rutter.
The Choir continues to strive for the very highest levels of musicianship in all that we do, and provides its members with a world-class education matched by unparalleled opportunities. I very much hope that the years ahead face considerably less disruption than the last two years, enabling Clare’s music and its musicians to flourish once again at collegiate, national and international levels.