The Fairhaven Singers is a chamber choir based in Cambridge, UK, directed by Ralph Woodward. The choir is a mixed ensemble of about 48 amateur singers singing choral repertoire from the 15th century to the present. [1] Among the major works it has performed are Bach's St John Passion and St Matthew Passion , Mozart's Requiem , Brahms' Requiem , and James MacMillan's Seven Last Words from the Cross. It has commissioned and premiered new works from composers that have included Jonathan Dove, Will Todd, Bob Chilcott, Carl Rütti and Cecilia MacDowall.
It performs mainly in Cambridge, most often in Trinity College Chapel, St John's College Chapel and Queens' College Chapel. It has also appeared at Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Suffolk, including concerts at the Aldeburgh Festival and Britten's War Requiem at the Britten Festival; at Ely Cathedral; at venues in London, including St Martin-in-the-Fields and St John's Smith Square; and at concert venues in Europe, including St Mark's Basilica, Venice. It has also been featured on BBC Radio 2, [2] [3] BBC Radio 3, [4] BBC Radio 4, [5] and Classic FM. [6]
The choir was founded in 1980, and is under the patronage of Lord Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey.
The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.
The King's Singers are a British a cappella vocal ensemble founded in 1968. They are named after King's College in Cambridge, England, where the group was formed by six choral scholars. In the United Kingdom, their popularity peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s. Thereafter they began to reach a wider American audience, appearing frequently on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the United States. In 1987, they were prominently featured as guests on the Emmy Award winning ABC-TV special Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.
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.
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English Anglican choir. It is considered one of today's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's College, Cambridge, in 1441, to provide daily singing in his Chapel, which remains the main task of the choir to this day.
Robert "Bob" Chilcott is a British choral composer, conductor, and singer, based in Oxfordshire, England. He was a member of the King's Singers from 1985 to 1997, singing tenor. He has been a composer since 1997.
Malcolm Archer is an English composer, conductor and organist. He combines this work with a recital career. Archer was formerly Organist and Director of Music at Bristol Cathedral, Wells Cathedral and at St Paul's Cathedral and Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. He married Alison in 1994, and they have a son (b.1997) and a daughter. (b.1999)
Stephen Farr is a British organist who is currently the Chief Examiner at the Royal College of Organists and the Director of Music at All Saints, Margaret Street.
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.
Andrew Nethsingha, FRCO, ARCM is an English choral conductor and organist, the son of the late Lucian Nethsingha also a cathedral organist. He is the Director of Music at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was previously the Organ Scholar. He was also the President of the Cathedral Organists' Association. He has performed in the UK, North America, South Africa, the Far East and many European countries.
Will Todd is an English musician and composer. He is a pianist, who performs regularly with others in his own works.
Cecilia McDowall is a British composer, best known for her choral music.
Roger Bevan Williams, MBE is a Welsh organist and musicologist. In 2010, he retired as Master of Ceremonial Music and Organist to the University of Aberdeen, a music department in which he had been a member for over 30 years.
Carl Rütti is a notable Swiss composer, who has written much choral music.
Merton College Chapel is the church of Merton College, Oxford, England. Dedicated to St Mary and St John the Baptist, the chapel was largely completed in its present form by the end of the 13th century. The building retains a number of original stained glass windows, and is noted for its acoustics. A choral foundation was established in 2008 by Peter Phillips.
The Arcadian Singers of Oxford is an independent, student-run chamber choir based in Oxford, England, originally formed in 1976 as a madrigal choir. It is a leading choir in the city and performs a wide range of music. Jamie Powe is the current musical director of The Arcadian Singers. Previous conductors have included Christopher Ward and Alexander Campkin.
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.
Ralph Woodward is an English classical conductor, arranger and organist. His main focus is on conducting choirs.
Alan Bullard is a British composer, known mainly for his choral and educational music. His compositions are regularly performed and broadcast worldwide, and they appear on a number of CDs.
A Boy Was Born, Op. 3, is a choral composition by Benjamin Britten. Subtitled Choral variations for men's, women's and boys' voices, unaccompanied , it was originally composed from 1932 to 1933. It was first performed on 23 February 1934 as a BBC broadcast. Britten revised the work in 1955. The composer set different texts related to Christmas to music as theme and variations, scored for an a cappella choir with boys' voices.
William Fox is an English organist, currently Sub-Organist of St Paul's Cathedral.