The Cambridge Singers is an English mixed voice chamber choir formed in 1981 by their director John Rutter with the primary purpose of making recordings under their own label Collegium Records.
The group initially comprised former singers from the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, where Rutter had previously been the music director.
They have been involved in the last four Fresh Aire albums (about "mankind's curiosities") of the Mannheim Steamroller band, by composer Chip Davis, but they are primarily a classical choral group.
They have recorded several highly acclaimed Christmas albums, including Christmas Day in the Morning, [1] Christmas Night: Carols of the Nativity , Christmas Star, [2] Christmas with the Cambridge Singers, and The Cambridge Singers Christmas Album.
John Milford Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
Sir Stephen John Cleobury was an English organist and music director. He worked with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, where he served as music director from 1982 to 2019, and with the BBC Singers.
Ann Murray, is an Irish mezzo-soprano.
James Philip Edwin Whitbourn was a British composer and conductor.
Simon Halsey, CBE is an English choral conductor. He is the chorus director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus, a position he has held since 1983, and has been chorus director of the London Symphony Chorus since 2012. He is also artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic Youth Choral Programme and the director of the BBC Proms Youth Choir, and conductor laureate of the Berlin Radio Choir. He is professor and director of choral activities at the University of Birmingham.
Susan Gritton is an English operatic soprano. She was the 1994 winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award and has sung leading roles in a wide-ranging repertoire from Handel and Mozart to Britten, Janáček and Strauss.
Elin Manahan Thomas is a Welsh soprano. A specialist in Baroque music, she sang at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018.
John Rutter's Gloria is a musical setting of parts of the Latin Gloria. He composed it in 1974 on a commission from Mel Olson, and conducted the premiere in Omaha, Nebraska. He structured the text in three movements and scored it for choir, brass, percussion and organ, with an alternative version for choir and orchestra. It was published in 1976 by Oxford University Press.
Saint Peter's Singers (SPS) is a chamber choir associated with Leeds Minster, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England that celebrated during the Season 2017/2018 the fortieth anniversary of the choir's formation by Harry Fearnley in 1977. An anniversary concert took place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 25 June 2017 with the National Festival Orchestra and soloists Kristina James, Joanna Gamble, Paul Dutton and Quentin Brown. Further anniversary year events included Bach Cantatas and Music for Christmas at Fulneck Church in August and December respectively, Handel Coronation Anthems at Holy Trinity, Boar Lane as part of the Leeds Handel Festival in September and a tour of East Anglia in October. In November at Leeds Town Hall, the Singers participated in Herbert Howells's masterpiece Hymnus Paradisi with Leeds Philharmonic Chorus and Leeds College of Music Chorale under the direction of Dr David Hill with the Orchestra of Opera North. 2018 began with a concert of Sacred Choral Masterworks at Leeds Town Hall in February and Bach's Mass in B minor at Leeds Minster on Good Friday 2018 in memory of long-serving member Jan Holdstock. The final concert of the current season takes place at Leeds Minster on Sunday 24 June at Leeds Minster at 5.30. At this event will be presented the first performance of a new work from composer Philip Moore commissioned for the Singers' 40th anniversary – the motet Tu es Petrus – along with music by E W Naylor, Arvo Part, Sir Hubert Parry, Judith Bingham and Maurice Durufle.
London Concert Choir (LCC) is one of London's leading amateur choirs. The choir was formed in 1960, and the full-time membership consists of ca 150 singers of a wide range of ages.
Gächinger Kantorei is an internationally known German mixed choir, founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1954 in Gächingen and conducted by him until 2013, succeeded by Hans-Christoph Rademann.
Bath Bach Choir, formerly The City of Bath Bach Choir (CBBC), is based in Bath, Somerset, England, and is a registered charity. Founded in 1946 by Cuthbert Bates, who also became a founding father of the Bath Bach Festival in 1950, the choir's original aim was to promote the music of Johann Sebastian Bach via periodic music festivals. Bates – an amateur musician with a great love and understanding of this composer's works – was also the CBBC's principal conductor and continued in this role until his sudden death, in April 1980. This untimely exit pre-empted his planned retirement concert performance of J. S. Bach's Mass in B minor, scheduled for July of the same year, and effectively ended the first period of the choir's history.
Roderick Gregory Coleman Williams OBE is a British baritone and composer.
Jonathan Gregory is the Director of Music of the UK-Japan Music Society and UK-Japan Choir, having previously been Director of Music at Leicester Cathedral from 1994 - 2010.
Angels' Carol is a popular sacred choral piece by John Rutter for Christmas. He wrote his own text, beginning "Have you heard the sound of the angel voices", three stanzas with the refrain "Gloria in excelsis Deo". It has been part of recordings of collections of Christmas music, including one conducted by the composer.
The Magnificat by John Rutter is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat, completed in 1990. The extended composition in seven movements "for soprano or mezzo-soprano solo, mixed choir, and orchestra " is based on the Latin text, interspersed with "Of a Rose, a lovely Rose", an anonymous English poem on Marian themes, the beginning of the Sanctus and a prayer to Mary. The music includes elements of Latin American music.
Graham Ross is a British conductor and composer. Since 2010 he has been the director of Choir of Clare College, Cambridge.
Cantillation is an Australian vocal ensemble founded in 2001 by Antony Walker and Alison Johnston. They were founded alongside orchestras Sinfonia Australis and Orchestra of the Antipodes.
"For the beauty of the earth" is a sacred choral composition by John Rutter, a setting of the hymn of the same name by Folliott S. Pierpoint. The work was published by Oxford University Press in 1980. Recorded several times, it has been described as "one of Rutter's more popular, enduring anthems".
Anna Markland is a British pianist who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1982, playing Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and subsequently pursued a dual performing career as pianist and soprano.