Choir Report

The Choir has excelled not only in regular liturgical Chapel services, but on the national and international stage. Despite welcoming an unprecedentedly large cohort of 19 new members, more than two thirds of the group’s total complement, the Choir continues to provide an enriching, educational experience for its Choral Scholars and Volunteers, with thrice-weekly services during the academic terms and a busy external schedule during vacations. The 2024–25 academic year presented a concert schedule that took the Choir to Warwick, Bedford, and Sinfonia, Smith Square, London for our flagship Christmas Concert in December. Overseas, the Choir toured its ‘Bethlehem Star’ Christmas programme to Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands in December 2024, including debut performances at the 1,000-capacity Dom St Blasien in Sankt-Blasien and an appearance on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.

The Director of Music was supported by the College’s two Organ Scholars, Daniel Blaze (Sir William McKie Senior Organ Scholar) and Evie Perfect (Junior Organ Scholar). Regular Chapel services this year have once again been invigorated with new commissions and premières, and collaborations with student instrumentalists. Projects included the world première of the Icelandic Sigurđur Sævarrson’s My beloved spake, attended by the composer himself, and a special Passiontide service featuring James MacMillan’s masterpiece Seven Last Words from the Cross.

The Choir performed its first concert weeks after the start of Michaelmas Term 2024, joining the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Hall for a performance of Henry Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Anne, Hail! Bright Cecilia, and My beloved spake which included solo contributions from several new members of the Choir. This was followed with a performance of the Choir’s programme A Child’s Prayer for the Bedford Music Club, featuring music by Sir John Rutter, Kurt Bestor, Emma Brown, and Lennox Berkeley. Later that term the Choir premièred Director of Music Graham Ross’s Clare Service in a BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong broadcast, also singing Lucy Walker’s Preces and Responses, composed for the Choir in 2023.

The first foreign tour of the academic year began in Switzerland in December 2024, with a Mass and Concert in Lugano’s Cattedrale di San Lorenzo. The Choir went on to perform Bethlehem Star in several churches across the Netherlands, including return performances in Amersfoort and Nijmegen. Christmas touring activities finished with two concerts either side of the Swiss-German border in Sankt-Blasien and Basel.

Lent Term 2025 proved to be an exciting time for members of Clare Choir past and present. In January, our much-anticipated album Palestrina: Revealed was released worldwide to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the composer’s birth, reaching No. 4 in the UK Specialist Classical Charts. Later in term the Choir returned to Hall to give a performance of Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem accompanied in the ‘London version’ for piano duet by pianists Isaac Chan and Daniel Blaze, alongside soloists and Choir alumni Hannah Dienes-Williams and Ed Ballard. The Requiem was preceded by Brahms’ Vier Gesänge for female chorus, harp, and two horns, with the Choir being joined for both by several former Choir members from recent years.

The Clare Choir Alumni Association has enjoyed another successful year, with eighty former choristers from as far back as 1960 joining forces with the current Choir in a rousing Evensong followed by a formal Dinner in Hall. The Choir hopes to be joined by even more alumni next year for a special performance of Haydn’s Creation in West Road Concert Hall to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the College’s founding.

During the summer, the Choir had a busy programme of domestic and international engagements, the highlight of which was performing a programme of Palestrina in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore, the resting place of the late Pope Francis and a Mass and concert in the town of Palestrina, the birthplace of the composer.

We continue to strive for the very highest levels of musicianship in all that we do, and provide the members of the Choir with a world-class education matched with unparalleled opportunities. None of the achievements and activities mentioned would be possible without the ongoing support from benefactors, Friends of Clare Music and individual donors.

We’ve got another busy programme for our 700th anniversary in 2026, with some special performances and commissions. We hope as many alumni as possible are able to return during this celebratory year.

For regular updates on the choir, visit the The Choir of Clare College website. To read our full Chapel report, click here.