Ex Cathedra is a leading British choir and early music ensemble based in Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. It performs choral music spanning the 15th to 21st centuries, and regularly commissions new works.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire is a music school, drama school and concert venue in Birmingham, England. It provides education in music, acting, and related disciplines up to postgraduate level. It is a centre for scholarly research and doctorate-level study in areas such as performance practice, composition, musicology and music history. It is the only one of the nine conservatoires in the United Kingdom that is also part of a faculty of a university, in this case Arts, Design and Media at Birmingham City University. It is a member of the Federation of Drama Schools, and a founder member of Conservatoires UK.
John Pierre Herman Joubert was a British composer of South African birth, particularly of choral works. He lived in Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, England, for over 50 years. A music academic in the universities of Hull and Birmingham for 36 years, Joubert took early retirement in 1986 to concentrate on composing and remained active into his eighties. Though perhaps best known for his choral music, particularly the carols Torches and There is No Rose of Such Virtue and the anthem O Lorde, the Maker of Al Thing, Joubert composed over 160 works including three symphonies, four concertos and seven operas.
Fyfe Antony Dangerfield Hutchins is an English musician and songwriter, best known as the founding member of the indie rock band Guillemots.
William Barton is an Aboriginal Australian didgeridoo player. He was born in Mount Isa, Queensland on 4 June 1981 and learned to play from his uncle, an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadungu tribes of Western Queensland. He is widely recognised as one of Australia's finest traditional didgeridoo players and a leading didgeridoo player in the classical world.
Charles Daniels is an English tenor, particularly noted for his performances of baroque music. He is a frequent soloist with The King's Consort, and has made over 25 recordings with the ensemble on the Hyperion label.
Bournville School is an all-through school and primary school with academy status, for students aged 4–16, in Bournville, Birmingham in the United Kingdom. The school has around 850 pupils currently on the roll, including a primary provision of around 150 students. The school became an Academy School on 1 November 2014 under the sponsorship of The Fairfax Multi Academy Trust (FMAT). Fairfax Academy is also in the same MAT.
Carl Rütti is a notable Swiss composer, who has written much choral music.
Paul Spicer is an English composer, conductor, and organist. He taught choral conducting at the Royal College of Music and conducted the RCM Chamber Choir between 1995 and 2008. Until his retirement in July 2022 he also taught at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and conducted their chamber choir which records for Somm Records. He also teaches at Oxford and Durham universities. Since 2004 he has been the conductor of the Petersfield Festival. He was Senior Producer for BBC Radio 3 for the Midlands Region based in Birmingham between 1984 and 1990 after which he moved to be artistic director of the Lichfield Festival. He also produced for various record companies over many years. He founded the Finzi Singers in 1984 making many recordings for Chandos Records. He conducts the Birmingham Bach Choir and the Whitehall Choir in London. His compositions include two oratorios for Easter and for Advent with libretti by the Dr Tom Wright and a choral symphony 'Unfinished Remembering' (2014) to a libretto by Euan Tait commemorating the outbreak of World War 1. He runs a series of choral courses under the banner of The English Choral Experience based mainly at Abbey Dore in Herefordshire.
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, is a mixed-voice choir whose primary function is to lead services in the chapel of Clare College, Cambridge. Since its founding in 1972, the choir has gained an international reputation as one of the leading university choral groups in the world.
Hilary John Davan Wetton is a British conductor.
Adrian Frederick Partington is an English conductor, chorus master, organist and pianist. He is director of music at Gloucester Cathedral, joint conductor of the Three Choirs Festival and artistic director for the Gloucester festival years, director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, conductor of Gloucester Choral Society, and former conductor of Bristol Choral Society and leader of the postgraduate choral conducting course at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
Carolyn Sampson is an English soprano in opera and concert. Specialising in historically informed performance, she has sung in Masaaki Suzuki's recording project of Bach cantatas and has appeared at the English National Opera.
Alec Roth (1948) is an English composer. He is best known for his collaboration with Vikram Seth to produce the opera Arion and the Dolphin in 1994 based on the myth of Arion.
Patrick Russill is an English choral conductor, organist and music conservatoire teacher.
Classical music in Birmingham began in the late Middle Ages, mainly devotional music which did not survive the Reformation. Evidence is scant until the years following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, when Birmingham's economy boomed. This was reflected in the scientific and cultural awakening known as the Midlands Enlightenment. The first sign of this transformation was the opening of the baroque St Philip's Church in 1715, which had a fine organ that attracted gifted musicians to the town.
Hanacpachap cussicuinin is a processional hymn to the Virgin Mary in the Quechua language but in a largely European sacred music style. Composed by an Inca student of Juan Pérez de Bocanegra between 1620 and 1631, a Franciscan priest, published in 1631 in the Viceroyalty of Peru making it the earliest work of vocal polyphony printed in the New World.
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC) is a British early music group founded in 1982. The ensemble presently consists of three cornetts and four sackbuts, with chamber organ or harpsichord. The group frequently collaborates with other instrumentalists and singers, and has an extensive discography on Hyperion Records and other labels.
Micaela "Mica" Comberti was an English violinist. Her concert career lasted from 1977 until her death. Born to a German mother and an Italian father, she was taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the Royal Academy of Music and the Mozarteum University Salzburg. Comberti was involved in early music and played for The English Concert, St. James' Baroque, Ex Cathedra and the Collegium Musicum 90. She also taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. An award and position at the Royal Academy of Music are named after the violinist.
