Tour of Australia and New Zealand, Summer 2006

  posing where Bilbo Baggins made his birthday speech in Lord of the Rings

Helen Walter and Margaret Hartley, tour organisers, write:

July saw the college Chapel Choir embark on a tour of Australia and New Zealand. The choir had little time to recover from a thirty-hour flight before being launched into a series of packed concerts in Sydney, Katoomba, Bathurst and Canberra. The group also gave a series of workshops, which were well attended by members of local choral societies wanting to know more about life in a Cambridge choir.

On returning to Sydney, the choir gave the first concert in St Philip's Church for many years, and were met by many Christ’s and Cambridge alumni, several of whom kindly hosted choir members for their final night in Australia.

The second leg of the tour saw the Choir visiting the North Island of New Zealand. Highlights included a performance in the beautiful acoustic of Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral, recorded by Radio New Zealand for broadcast later in the year. Once in Wellington, a workshop with 70 primary school children led to a joint performance of Evensong in the spectacular Cathedral. The itinerary concluded with concerts in Palmerston North, Cambridge and Hamilton Cathedral, rounding off a packed schedule giving thirteen concerts, two choral workshops, two services and three radio broadcasts within the space of three weeks.

**We have vacancies for all voice parts to start in October 2025. Whether you are a fresher or continuing student, undergraduate or postgraduate, at Christ's or another college, we would love to hear from you. Please send an email to choir.admin@christs.cam.ac.uk**

Why Christ's? 

Christ's College Choir combines an excellent reputation and very high musical standard with a warm and welcoming atmosphere. The Choir's manageable weekly schedule allows members to get involved in a range of other university activities. There are no restrictions on what subject members of the choir may be studying.

Key information

The standard weekly schedule for choir members at Christ's runs as follows:

Wednesday: 6:00pm rehearsal

​Thursday: 5:20pm rehearsal; 6:30pm evensong; 7:30pm formal dinner

​Sunday: 4:15pm rehearsal; 6pm evensong; drinks and formal dinner following the service

The choir also sings twice-termly compline in small groups of around 8 singers. 

How to join: Contact the Director of Music or choir.admin@christs.cam.ac.uk for further information on joining the Choir as a singer or Organ Scholar. 

Members of the Choir are selected by audition with the Director of Music. Commitment, potential and enthusiasm are essential, and whilst previous experience of choral singing is common, we welcome applications from singers who haven't had the opportunity to sing in a regular choir. For more information on the audition process, please get in touch. 

The choir's composition is normally around 6 sopranos, 5 altos, 4 tenors and 6 basses. These are approximate numbers as there are no fixed quotas.

Most choir members hold Choral Exhibitions, some awarded as a result of the Choral Trials, some in October, and others during the course of the academic year. There are no specific limits on the number of awards made at the Trials, and in the past Christ's has always had sufficient space for all candidates of appropriate vocal and musical ability. 

Choral Exhibitions can be awarded to students in any subject. While it is expected that Choral Exhibitioners will participate fully in the College's musical life, the weekly schedule of rehearsals and services enables individuals to participate in other activities, including College and University sports teams, stage events and any number of operas, musicals and operas put on during term time.

Benefits of membership include:

• Vocal training with leading UK singers, paid for by the Choir. Current members study with Ghislaine Morgan, Richard Edgar Wilson and Miriam Allan. Choral scholars receive four hours of vocal tuition in Michaelmas term, four hours in Lent term, and two hours in Easter term.
• Free formals after Thursday and Sunday services and additional feasts, drinks receptions and other events throughout the year.
• International travel: the Choir undertakes an extensive annual tour of up to three weeks. Read more here.
  Recent destinations have included Singapore, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and the United States.
• Concerts around the UK, including a regular series of Christmas concerts in St John's Smith's Square, St Martin-in-the-fields and a number of English Heritage properties.
• The chance to record CDs and broadcast.
  The Choir has broadcast with BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, Classic FM and a number of international radio stations in recent years.
• A £100 annual honorarium for Choral Exhibitioners

The choir toured Singapore and New Zealand in July 2019, will tour the East Coast of the USA in July 2022. Recent engagements before the Covid-19 pandemic included a performance of Mozart's Requiem in St Martin-in-the-fields and Christmas concerts in English Heritage properties as well as top London venues including St John's Smith Square. In the 2021/22 academic year, the choir sang regularly at the Royal Military Chapel (The Guards' Chapel).

Organ Scholars

The College normally has two or three Organ Scholars at any one time. They assist the Director of Music in the running of the Choir, accompany services and concerts, and, on occasions, conduct the choir. Further information can be found on the Organ Scholars pages.

David Rowland was Organ Scholar at Corpus Christi College and during his third year he assisted the Organ Scholar at Kings by playing regularly at services. After graduating in 1978 he pursued research in Cambridge, while still playing the organ and in 1981 he won the prestigious St Alban's International Organ Competition. In the following year he was a major prizewinner at the Dublin International Organ Competition. Subsequently David became a lecturer in the music department of Glasgow University and then Director of Music at Christ's College Cambridge, where he has conducted the choir since 1984. More recently, from 2002-4 he conducted the Welsh National Youth Choir.

In addition to conducting he records, broadcasts and performs regularly in London's South Bank concert halls and in many other venues nationwide, on harpsichord, organ and early piano. David joined the staff of the Music Department of the Open University in 1989. He was Dean and Director of Studies for the Faculty of Arts from 2007-14, and was Professor of Music and Director of Taught Postgraduate Studies until his retirement in 2024. David is now Emeritus Professor. He pursues research into the performance practice of the early piano, and in particular into the career of Muzio Clementi, on which subjects he has written four books and other scholarly material.

Please email choir.admin@christs.cam.ac.uk for an up-to-date biography for David or the Choir.

All services are open to the public, and all are very welcome. The normal times during Full Term are:

Thursday: 6:30pm
Sunday: 6:00pm - with a guest preacher and drinks served afterwards in the antechapel

At Choral Evensong services, the Choir sings a setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, alongside the responses and a psalm. Mass settings in Latin or English are sung at less frequent Choral Eucharist services. At both services an anthem of up to about 5 minutes is sung. The Choir is keen to support composers from within College and beyond, and frequently premieres new works.

Current music list: Lent 2025.​​​​​​​

Singing atop the Great Gate on Ascension Day 2017

Previous service lists:

• Michaelmas 2024
• Easter 2024
• Lent 2024
• Michaelmas 2023
• Lent 2023
• Michaelmas 2022
• Easter 2022
• Lent Term 2022
• Michaelmas 2021
• Lent 2020
• Michaelmas 2019
• Easter 2019
• Lent 2019
• Michaelmas 2018
• Easter 2018
• Lent 2018
• Michaelmas 2017
• Easter 2017
• Lent 2017
• Michaelmas 2016
• Easter 2016
• Lent 2016
• Michaelmas 2015
• Lent 2015
• Michaelmas 2014
• Easter Term 2014
• Lent Term 2014
• Michaelmas Term 2013

In rehearsal in Christ's College Chapel

Christ's College Chapel Choir commits to singing weekly services on Thursdays and Sundays in the College Chapel during Full Term, and makes a vital contribution to college life by singing at feasts, weddings, annual Christmas and Passiontide services and alumni events. Additionally, choir members commit to an exciting range of major international tours, recordings, broadcasts and concerts around the UK.

Choir members are selected by audition either before or after beginning study at Cambridge, and each is expected to be of a very high musical standard. Most hold Choral Exhibitions, and all benefit from regular vocal training with excellent singing teachers, paid for by the College. Many ex-Christ's choristers and organists are now professional singers and musicians, performing with ensembles such as The Sixteen and Ex Cathedra, and enjoying distinguished solo careers.

It is possible to book the choir, organ scholars, small groups of singers and/or individual singers for weddings, funerals, memorial services and other events. For more information about fees and availability, please contact Tom Baarda on choir.admin@christs.cam.ac.uk.

History and Tradition                                                                                                             

The Chapel Choir today continues the age-old traditions of maintaining chapel choirs in Cambridge, and Christ's has enjoyed a rich musical history. Lady Margaret Beaufort, the college Foundress, left a bequest of three organs on her death in 1509. The Chapel Choir was originally made up solely of male voices, the upper parts being sung by boy trebles.

Even before Christ's College became mixed in 1979, women were admitted from other colleges to sing the upper parts, and since then the choral sound has developed through "the quality of the female undergraduates who bring precision, sensitivity, and increasingly mature musicianship to the upper lines" (Church Times).

 
Dr Matthew Kenneth HIGGINS

Fellow 2005 to 2010

Email: mkh20 "at" cam.ac.uk  />

Website: http://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/people/uto/higgins.html 

During cerebral malaria, parasite infected red blood cells block tiny blood vessels in the brain, leading to coma, neurological damage and death. In placental malaria, infected red blood cells bind to the placenta causing miscarriage, premature birth and death of mother and child. The interactions at the heart of both of these disease phenotypes involve PfEMP1 proteins, produced by the parasite and displayed on the surface of the infected red blood cell (1). These PfEMP1 proteins interact with human receptors, tethering or clumping the infected erythrocytes and causing the symptoms of disease. Our major goal is to investigate the structures of these PfEMP1 proteins and the molecular basis for their interactions with human receptors.

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That's a wrap! At the end of our most recent recording in March 2022

NEWS FEBRUARY 2024: NEW CD RELEASE

Annabel McLauchlan Rooney Like to a flower released on Regent Records. Read more here.

"executed with assurance and eloquence ... the Christ's College undergraduates sing with freshness and security"
Gramophone 

"fresh voices, precise pitching and chording, expert pacing"
BBC Music Magazine

'The recorded sound is a sheer delight.
This is a genuinely involving sacred disc, heart-rendingly sung by a group of unquestioned talent.'
Church Times

The Choir has made many recordings over the past twenty-five years of a huge range of repertoire. Our most recent release, 'As a seed bursts forth', was devoted to the work of Christ's alumna Annabel Rooney, the first recording of her choral music. In 2022 the choir recorded a second disc of Annabel's music, again with Regent Records, which will be released next year. In the longer term, we are also planning a project featuring Parry's Songs of Farewell.

Sir Philip Ledger

Requiem
Adam Lay Ybounden
Advent Calendar
A spotless rose
Jesus Christ the apple tree
In the bleak mid-winter
Lie still and slumber (Two lullabies for Christmas):
            i Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber
            ii Hush you, my baby
Good Christian men, rejoice
If ye love me
Loving Shepherd of thy sheep
Do not stand at my grave and weep
O Master, let me walk with Thee
Christ’s journey
This joyful Eastertide

REGCD283  Scarlatti (2009)

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725):
Missa breve, e concertata a cinque voci

Ad Dominum dum tribularer 
Justitiae Domini 
Exsurge Domine 
Exaltabo te Domine 
Domine in auxilium meum 
Exultate Deo 

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757):
Stabat Mater

Music of the Tudors

Thomas Tallis:
Lamentations of Jeremiah, Part 1
Lamentations of Jeremiah, Part 2
Sancte Deus

John Taverner: O Christe Jesu

John Sheppard: 
Libera nos
Nunc Dimittis

Robert White: Christe, qui lux es et Dies

Robert Parsons: Ave Maria
William Mundy:
Ah, helpless wretch
O Lord, the maker

Romantic church music from Europe

"With music in four different languages (Latin, French, German and Italian), the disc demonstrates the outstanding skill of an extremely well-trained choir"
Suzanne Flowers

Brahms:
Ach, arme Welt (Op.110, no.2)
Geistliches Lied (Op.30)
Schaffe in mir, Gott (Op.29, no.2)
Wenn wir in hoechsten Noeten sein (Op.110, no.3)

Faure:
Tantum ergo (3 solo vv.. chorus, Op.65, no.2)
Tantum ergo (1 solo voice, chorus)
Maria Mater gratiae (Op.47, no.2)
O salutaris hostia
Ave verum corpus (Op.65, no.1)
Ave Maria (Op.67, n0.2)
Cantique de Jean Racine (Op.11)

Verdi:
Pater noster
Ave Maria (Quattro pezzi sacri)

Liszt:
Salve Regina
O salutaris hostia
Ave verum corpus

 
Fellow 2008-2012

Senior Research Associate in the Department of Zoology

Email:

Website: http://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/principal-investigators/researcher/catherine-green

I ran a small group in the Department of Zoology funded by a Cancer Research UK career development fellowship. We are investigating the mechanisms and control of genome replication, both at genetic and epigenetic levels. It is during replication that the mutations that cause cancer are either generated or fixed, and hence the study of the basic mechanisms of replication is crucial to understanding cancer delevopment.

In the laboratory we use biochemical approaches such as surface plasmon resonance to investigate physical interactions between replication proteins, and also in vivo studies of replication protein dynamics and interactions in human tissue culture systems.

Catherine has taken a position at the Nuffield Department of Medicine in the University of Oxford.

 
Mark Robert Darlow MA PhD

Fellow 2006 - 2010

Director of Studies in French

University Senior Lecturer in the Department of French 

Email: mrd32 "at" cam.ac.uk

Website: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/staff/mrd32/ 

Mark Darlow works on eighteenth-century French theatre and music, especially opéra comique, Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and the culture of the Revolutionary period. He is a member of the team editing the correspondence of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and has published Maîtres et valets en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1999), Nicolas-Etienne Framery and lyric theatre in eighteenth-century France (Oxford, 2003), Revolutionary Culture: Continuity and Change (Nottingham French Studies, 2006), and co-edited, with Dr Caroline Warman (Jesus College, Oxford) The Discursive Culture: Action and Interaction, text and context (Oxford, 2007), as well as articles and chapters on the areas mentioned above. Current projects include an institutional history of the Paris Opera, 1789-1799, and a critical edition of Laya's L'Ami des lois, both funded by the Philip Leverhulme Prize trust.

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Junior Research Fellow 2007 - 2011

Bye-Fellow 2011

Email:

Website:

Research Interests: Greek lyric song, especially Pindar and Bacchylides; genre in ancient literature; narrative in Greek lyric; collective memory.

Peter was appointed to a lectureship at UCL in 2012.