account
basket
Challenge Records Int. logo
Requiem
Grayston Ives

The Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge

Requiem

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212068229
Catnr: SIGCD 682
Release date: 10 September 2021
Buy
1 CD
✓ in stock
€ 19.95
Buy
 
Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212068229
Catalogue number
SIGCD 682
Release date
10 September 2021
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN

About the album

Bill Ives has enjoyed a rich and varied career as both performer and composer (Grayston Ives). These experiences, culminating in nearly two decades as Informator Choristarum (Director of Music) at Magdalen College, Oxford, are reflected in a compositional style which is complex yet accessible, rich and colourful. His choral music comes from the heart, and this deeply personal reaction to the texts enables the performer or listener to engage with and enjoy the music to its full extent.

This recording represents two ‘firsts’ for the choirs of Jesus College, Cambridge: The first time the choir have collaborated on a recording with the Britten Sinfonia, as well as is the first time both chapel and college choirs they have joined forces for an entire album.

Bill (Grayston) Ives writes: “In the Requiem many influences are thrown into the musical melting pot and will be apparent to the discerning listener. Ultimately, the piece is firmly rooted in the Anglican choral tradition (written specifically for liturgical performance), the distillation of a lifetime in music ... The delicate, sweet sound of a pair of tiny hand-held cymbals is heard at the opening and at intervals throughout. They were bought at Snape Maltings from a group of Tibetan monks who were resident there during the summer of 2008 when ideas for the piece were forming.”

Artist(s)

The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge

The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge, directed by Richard Pinel, has gained an international reputation for its music-making, based on performances around the globe, broadcasts, highly praised recordings and regular services in the College's beautiful and ancient chapel. Jesus College, founded out of the ancient nunnery of St Radegund in 1496, has a long and rich tradition of church music. It is distinctive in maintaining two choirs: the Chapel Choir, with its centuries of tradition, which is made up of boy choristers and adult male singers; and the College Choir, formed in 1982, which has female undergraduates for its top line. The adult male singers form the ‘back row’ for both choirs. Each choir has developed a distinctive reputation and repertoire. Occasionally,...
more

The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge, directed by Richard Pinel, has gained an international reputation for its music-making, based on performances around the globe, broadcasts, highly praised recordings and regular services in the College's beautiful and ancient chapel.

Jesus College, founded out of the ancient nunnery of St Radegund in 1496, has a long and rich tradition of church music. It is distinctive in maintaining two choirs: the Chapel Choir, with its centuries of tradition, which is made up of boy choristers and adult male singers; and the College Choir, formed in 1982, which has female undergraduates for its top line. The adult male singers form the ‘back row’ for both choirs. Each choir has developed a distinctive reputation and repertoire.
Occasionally, the College and Chapel Choirs join together for services and concerts, forming an ensemble of nearly fifty singers. Projects have included Haydn's Nelson Mass, Handel's Messiah and Bach's St Matthew Passion and St John Passion. The Combined Choirs have performed with renowned soloists and ensembles including the Saraband Consort and His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts under Mark Williams, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under John Rutter. The Combined Choirs also participate in regular large-scale performances with other Cambridge Choirs, including Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, Verdi's Otello and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.


less

Britten Sinfonia

In 1992, Britten Sinfonia was established as a bold reimagining of the conventional image of an orchestra. A flexible ensemble comprising the UK’s leading soloists and chamber musicians came together with a unique vision: to collapse the boundaries between old and new music; to collaborate with composers, conductors and guest artists across the arts, focussing on the musicians rather than following the vision of a principal conductor; and to create involving, intelligent music events that both audiences and performers experience with an unusual intensity. The orchestra is named after Benjamin Britten, in part a homage to its chosen home of the East of England, where Britten’s roots were also strong. But Britten Sinfonia also embodies its namesake’s ethos. Its projects are...
more
In 1992, Britten Sinfonia was established as a bold reimagining of the conventional image of an orchestra. A flexible ensemble comprising the UK’s leading soloists and chamber musicians came together with a unique vision: to collapse the boundaries between old and new music; to collaborate with composers, conductors and guest artists across the arts, focussing on the musicians rather than following the vision of a principal conductor; and to create involving, intelligent music events that both audiences and performers experience with an unusual intensity. The orchestra is named after Benjamin Britten, in part a homage to its chosen home of the East of England, where Britten’s roots were also strong. But Britten Sinfonia also embodies its namesake’s ethos. Its projects are illuminating and distinctive, characterised by their rich diversity of influences and artistic collaborators; and always underpinned by a commitment to uncompromising quality, whether the orchestra is performing in New York’s Lincoln Center or in Lincolnshire’s Crowland Abbey.
Britten Sinfonia musicians are deeply rooted in the communities with which they work, with an underlying philosophy of finding ways to reach even the most excluded individuals and groups. Today Britten Sinfonia is heralded as one of the world’s leading ensembles and its philosophy of adventure and reinvention has inspired a new movement of emerging chamber groups. It is an Associate Ensemble at London’s Barbican, Resident Orchestra at Saffron Hall in Essex and has residencies in Norwich and Cambridge. It performs an annual chamber music series at London’s Wigmore Hall and appears regularly at major UK festivals including the Aldeburgh, Brighton, Norfolk and Norwich Festivals and the BBC Proms. The orchestra has performed a live broadcast to more than a million people worldwide from the Sistine Chapel, regularly tours internationally including to the US, South America, Asia and extensively in Europe. It is a BBC Radio 3 Broadcast Partner and has award-winning recordings on the Hyperion and Harmonia Mundi labels. Recent and current collaborators include Keaton Henson, dancer/choreographer Pam Tanowitz and theatre director Ivo van Hove, with commissions from Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Shiva Freshareki, Emily Howard, Brad Mehldau and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
The orchestra was a commissioning partner in a ground-breaking partnership between minimalist composer Steve Reich and visual artist Gerhard Richter in a new work that was premiered in October 2019. Outside the concert hall, Britten Sinfonia musicians work on creative and therapeutic projects with pre-school children, teenagers, young carers, people suffering from dementia, life-time prisoners and older people at risk of isolation. The orchestra’s OPUS competition offers unpublished composers the chance to receive a professional commission and unearths new, original and exciting UK compositional talent. Members of Britten Sinfonia Academy, the orchestra’s youth chamber ensemble for talented young performers, have performed in museums, improvised with laptop artists, led family workshops and appeared at Latitude Festival.

less

Richard Pinel (conductor)

Composer(s)

Press

Play album Play album

You might also like..

Alec Roth
Alec Roth, Vikram Seth The Traveller, Earth and Sky
Alec Roth
Ludwig van Beethoven, Gerald Barry
Symphonies Nos. 7-9 – The Eternal Recurrence
Thomas Adès
Ludwig van Beethoven, Gerald Barry
Beethoven & Barry Vol. 2
Britten Sinfonia
Gerald Barry, Ludwig van Beethoven
Gerald Barry Piano Concerto and 'Beethoven' / Ludwig van Beethoven Symphonies 1, 2 & 3
Britten Sinfonia
Various composers
Praise my soul
Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge
Benjamin Britten, William Byrd
Byrd | Britten
The Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge
Various composers
The Evening Hour
The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge
Various composers
My Beloved's Voice: Sacred Songs of Love
Choir of Jesus College Cambridge / Mark Williams
Various composers
War & Peace: Music for Remembrance
The Coir of Jesus College Cambridge
Various composers
Journey into Light
The Choir of Jesus, College Cambridge