Welcome
Although Christ Church Cathedral Choir is 500 years old, it is justly famous for the youthfulness of its sound and its daring and adventurous musical programming. Unique in the world as both Cathedral and College choir, the intimate acoustic of its musical home, Oxford's 12th-century Cathedral, has given it a relationship with early sacred music and the rhythm and vigour of contemporary idioms which is second to none.
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"To hear a choir like this is to hear a quality of musicianship with no equal anywhere in the world"
- Sunday Independent
The Choir rehearsing in Germany
Latest News:
Leipzig Bach Festival
Christ Church Cathedral Choir in the Nikolaikirche, Leipzig
The Cathedral Choir have just returned from the Leipzig Bach Festival where they received a standing ovation for their performance of choral works by J S Bach and his relations at a concert in the Nikolaikirche on Monday 16 June.
Recording News
The Choir have just finished recording Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light: A Requiem for EMI Classics. For further information see http://www.emiclassics.com/news.php
New Photo Galleries
Cathedral Choir returns from triumphant tour to Kingston, Jamaica!
The Choir joined forces with the Chapel Choir of Kingston College for concerts in Kingston and Mandeville, as well as singing in Spanish Town Cathedral (the oldest Anglican cathedral in the Southern Hemisphere) and at the Manley School of Performing Arts in Kingston. More information can be found in the following links.
Christ Church - Chorister Voice Trials
Voice trials by arrangement for boys aged 7 to 8 years substantial bursaries available. Registrar@cccs.org.uk | www.cccs.org.uk (01865) 260650 3 Brewer Street, Oxford OX1 1QW
Latest Taverner Disc review
Christ Church Cathedral Choir’s recent recording of John Taverner’s Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas has been awarded the distinction of being an “Editor’s Choice” in the October edition of the prestigious Gramophone magazine.
In his review of the disc Peter Quantrill says:
“The Choir of Christ Church could hardly have made a more ambitious return to recording… Taverner’s Mass is the chef d’oeuvre of the greatest composer of his time, yet it has never before been recorded by the kind of liturgical choir which he had in mind; this is a courageous and significant act of reclamation. Courageous, because Taverner’s demands of phrase and melodic continuity are more subtle, but no less daunting in their own way, than those presented by Palestrina and Gombert… Christ Church are definitely the type of choir Taverner wanted.”
An interview with the Choir’s Director, Stephen Darlington accompanies the review in which he discusses the complexity of the music and the virtuosic demands it places on the singers.
Introducing his Editor’s Choice for the month, James Inverne writes:
“An important recording this, it is the first of the great Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas by an all-male liturgical choir. As the Christ Church Choir’s conductor Stephen Darlington says in his interview, the work had rather fallen out of that tradition, partly because of the sheer difficulty of some of the writing. The results sound fresh and properly devotional, though they may be controversial.”
The recording is available from Christ Church Cathedral Shop (mail-order by telephone 01865 201971) and from all good record shops.