[photo Rhian Ap Gruffydd]
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford, was founded just under 500 years ago by Thomas Wolsey and Henry VIII. The boy choristers attend their own choir school attached to Christ Church and about half of the men are undergraduates at Oxford University.
Christ Church, Oxford, is probably best known around the world as the college where Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), a mathematics lecturer, befriended Alice Liddell and wrote for her Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass. The garden where Alice played is much the same today.
Christ Church Cathedral choristers in Dean Liddell's garden
Now world famous in their own right for the excellence of their singing, the choir (in the last couple of years alone) has toured to great acclaim Japan, the USA (St Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Chicago and - just before Christmas 2000, a brilliantly reviewed trip to Washington with the Folger Consort) and also performed at festivals in Freiberg, Germany and Antwerp, Belgium. In August 2002 they made their first visit to the Lahti Festival, Finland, and in November gave two concerts at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As well as tours further afield, the Choir gives concerts throughout the year around Britain, this past year alone performing (twice) at the Royal Festival Hall, The Maltings, Snape, for the Aldeburgh Festival, St John's Smith Square, the Nimbus Concert Hall, Monmouth, The Sheldonian, Oxford and Syon Park, Kew, in addition, of course, to Christ Church Cathedral.
The choir featured in the Channel 4 BAFTA winning documentary series, Howard Goodall's Big Bangs and sang Mozart and Palestrina in the Channel 4 series Howard Goodall's Great Dates, screened in the UK and Australia in October 2002. They also performed part of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms in Howard Goodall's 20th Century Greats, broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK December 2004 and repeated no less than five times since. Many of the adult singers in the choir also sang in Howard Goodall's 2006 series How Music Works.
The choir's own website can be found by clicking here.
Email Val Fancourt Music Management here
The choir undertakes a prodigious broadcasting and recording schedule, as well as performing daily services throughout the year in the cathedral and, of course, is heard regularly singing the Mr Bean and Vicar of Dibley theme tunes on TV!
2007 engagements:
24th January the boy choristers performed at the Roundhouse, Camden Town, London
12th February soundtrack recording at Abbey Road Studios for forthcoming Universal/Working Title film MR BEAN'S HOLIDAY
4th April Bach St John Passion with London Musici at Christ Church Cathedral
28th June Man Booker Prize, Christ Church Dining Hall
19th-26th October tour of Jamaica
December 8th 2007 Venice Simplon Orient Express concert, Christ Church Cathedral
17th December Music at Oxford concert
21st December Music at Oxford concert Christ Church Cathedral
[September 2009 Duisberg, Germany]
2003, 2004, 2005 & 2006 CONCERT ENGAGEMENTS click here
[photo Rhian Ap Gruffydd]
[photo Rhian Ap Gruffydd]