10 of the greatest choirs in the world

 

The Choir of King's College Cambridge. Picture: Alamy

By Rosie Pentreath

@rosiepentreath

From the greatest gospel powerhouses, and inspiring youth initiatives, to traditional cathedral choirs, we celebrate some of the greatest vocal ensembles performing around the world today. 

The human voice is one of the most versatile, varied and utterly sublime musical instruments we have at our disposal.

And when blended and heard in the context of an ensemble or choir, the sound can be transcendent.

Here we celebrate some of the greatest choirs performing around the world today. 

1. Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

   A pillar of the English choral tradition, the Choir of King’s College was founded in the 15th century, and still performs to audiences all over the world – through international touring, and through broadcasts and recordings, including their beloved annual Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols on airwaves around the world on Christmas Eve. The service, which was first broadcast in 1928, is heard by millions across the globe every year.

   
   

   

   O Holy Night – Choir of King's College Cambridge

2. The Sixteen

   Sticking with the English choral tradition, and The Sixteen is a UK-based choral ensemble known and celebrated all over the world for performances delivered with precision, power and passion. The choir’s sound is rich and expressive and through TV broadcasts and film inclusions has introduced countless newcomers to works drawn from well over five centuries of sacred and secular repertoire. The choir established Genesis Sixteen in 2011 to nurture the next generation of vocal talent.

   
   

   

   William Byrd ‘O Lord, Make Thy Servant Charles’, sung by The Sixteen

3. Escolania de Montserrat

   Catalonia’s traditional boy’s choir, Escolania de Montserrat, was formed for the express purpose of providing choral music for the services of the Montserrat Abbey, to the north-west of Barcelona. One of the oldest institutions of its kind in Europe, the 13th-century choir also prides itself on its provision of “the Christian and moral education for the boys who perform in the choir”.

   

   El Virolai

4. The Tallis Scholars

   British early music choir, The Tallis Scholars was founded by Peter Phillips in 1973, and it’s done much to champion music of the Renaissance and beyond. The choir has its own recording label, Gimell, and through this has released numerous acclaimed and award-winning recordings. The choir’s famous 1980 recording of Allegri’s Miserere remains one of the finest recordings of the piece ever made.

   

   Allegri: Miserere | Peter Phillips & Tallis Scholars

5. Estonian Philharmonic Choir

   The Estonian Philharmonic Choir is inextricably linked with the music of great composer Arvo Pärt, whose work it performs and records often, alongside that of other Estonian composers, and composers from all over the world and all through history. The choir was founded in 1981 by Tõnu Kaljuste, who was the artistic director and chief conductor for twenty years. Paul Hillier, Daniel Reuss and Kaspars Putniņš have also steered the ship.

   

   Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. Arvo Pärt - Salve Regina

6. The Mississippi Mass Choir

   One of the most celebrated gospel choirs in the US, The Mississippi Mass Choir was founded by gospel singer Franklin Williams and since it released its debut recording in 1988 it’s been in numerous Billboard charts, while winning Grammys and making TV appearances – including on the sitcom Black-ish, and the Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown.

   

   The Mississippi Mass Choir - The Promise

7. RIAS Chamber Choir

   The chorale arm of Berlin’s Radio Orchestra and Choirs, RIAS Chamber Choir first performed in October 1948, under the baton of Herbert Froitzheim. As well as being the vocal ensemble for some of the best orchestras in the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, this choir’s raison d'être is also the commissioning and championing of contemporary music for vocal ensembles.

   

   RIAS Kammerchor / Ensemble Resonanz / Justin Doyle - BACH "Komm, Jesu, komm" BMV 229

8. Treorchy Male Voice Choir

   In 2022, Welsh singing legend, Tom Jones, named Treorchy Male Voice Choir – which was founded in its namesake town in Wales’s Rhondda Valley in 1883 – the best of its kind in the world. From organic beginnings as a group of 10 to 15 men meeting in town hall, pub and adjacent settings, the choir has gone on to make over 50 recordings and win the hearts of people throughout Wales – which is world famous for its fine choirs – and far beyond.

   

   Treorchy Male Choir's stunning flashmob version of Calon Lân

9. Polyphony

   Stephen Layton’s ensemble, Polyphony, was born at Cambridge University and quickly made a name for itself as a fine choir of note. The Evening Standard once wrote, “No one, but no one, performs Handel's Messiah better every year than the choir Polyphony”, and the choir regularly performs with the best orchestras, and atop the most hallowed stages, all over the world.

   And though they may be famous for their baroque performances, there’s no other choir you’d want singing contemporary choral music form the likes of Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen.

   

   Whitacre: Sleep

10. Ndlovu Youth Choir

    Ndlovu Youth Choir is a South African choir, founded in 2009 with the aim of giving children from disadvantaged backgrounds the chance to participate in music and education, and to thrive. The choir, which has appeared on America’s Got Talent, is a viral internet sensation, and it’s got recording chops too: its debut studio album Africa(2019) went straight to number one in the South African charts when it was released.

    

    Ndlovu Youth Choir - Celebrate (Official Music Video)

10 of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s all-time best pieces of music

Exploring some of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s all-time best pieces of music. Picture: Getty / J.B. Cramer / Novello

By Rosie Pentreath

@rosiepentreath

British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is famous for rich orchestral works and brilliant instrumental writing. Here’s where to start with his music.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was an English composer and conductor, known for his Violin Concerto in G minor, The Song of Hiawatha and his arrangement of African-American spiritual, ‘Deep River’.

A contemporary of British composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gustav Holst, he studied with Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music in London. He first gained recognition for his ‘Ballade in A Minor’, after Edward Elgar recommended him to The Three Choirs Festival, prompting publisher August Jaeger to describe the music as “genius”.

Despite a tragically early death in 1912, aged just 37, Coleridge-Taylor composed plenty of brilliant music that remains with us today.

Here’s where to start with discovering Coleridge-Taylor’s rich orchestral music and sensational instrumental works.

1. The Song of Hiawatha

   One of Coleridge-Taylor’s most famous works, The Song of Hiawatha is a three-section choral work of epic proportions.

   Of the three sections, the first, ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’, became especially famous, and put Coleridge-Taylor on the map after its premiere at the Royal College of Music, under the baton of his teacher, Charles Villiers Stanford.

2. Violin Concerto in G minor

   Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G minor is packed with gorgeous rich melodies and sumptuous orchestral writing.

   Violinist Elena Urioste, who has performed the piece with Chineke! Orchestra among others, has described it here as “music that cuts straight to the heart” and “that happens to be incredibly well-written for the violin — the idioms fall quite naturally in the hands — and to me the language needs very little in the way of gilding.”

3. Symphonic Variations on an African Air

   Coleridge-Taylor composed his Symphonic Variations on an African Air in 1906. It’s based on an African-American song, ‘I'm troubled in mind’ and follows a theme and variations structure.

   It’s written for a large orchestra and is rich with timpani rumbles, wonderful brass writing, string flourishes and magical tuneful melodies.

4. Deep River (traditional)

   ‘Deep River’ is an anonymous African-American spiritual, and Coleridge-Taylor took the song, and transcribed it in a Brahmsian style for the piano, as part of his 24 Negro Melodies series of works.

   “What Brahms has done for the Hungarian folk music, Dvořák for the Bohemian, and Grieg for the Norwegian, I have tried to do for these Negro Melodies,” Coleridge-Taylor said of this powerful music.

5. Ballade in A Minor

   One of Coleridge-Taylor’s early works, the Ballade in A Minor was premiered at The Three Choirs Festival and led his publisher at Novello Music, August Jaeger, to describe him as a “genius”.

   The one-movement orchestral piece echoes the Romantic symphonic styles of Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, and it’s full of ravishing melodies and lush string moments.

6. Clarinet Quintet

   As well as orchestral works, Coleridge-Taylor composed chamber works – and his Clarinet Quintet is Dvořákian, but with the the former’s distinctive modern voice.

   The masterful piece, the story goes, was the result of Coleridge-Taylor’s teacher, Stanford, saying that no composer was up to tackling the clarinet quintet since Brahms, without copying Brahms’ style. Well, Coleridge-Taylor was, because he went “challenge accepted” and Stanford was forced to say, “you’ve done it, me boy!”

   
   

7. Nonet in F minor

   Another chamber work, the Nonet in F minor joins the voices of a string quartet with a selection of brass-winds – that is the oboe, the clarinet, the horn, the bassoon and the piano.

   It’s only the second of Coleridge-Taylor’s officially chronologically catalogued works, or works with an ‘opus number’, and it’s built around modern, syncopated rhythms that accompany soaring, tuneful melodies.

8. Christmas Overture

   Coleridge-Taylor takes traditional Christmas carols and wraps them up in orchestral greatness for this Christmas Overture.

   Spot favourite festive tunes from the traditional carols ‘Good King Wenceslas’, ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’ and ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’, among others.

9. Sea Drift

   Sea Drift is an a cappella choir piece from 1908 in which Coleridge-Taylor sets an evocative poem by American writer and poet Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

   “See where she stands, on the wet sea-sands / Looking across the water: Wild is the night, but wilder still / The face of the fisher’s daughter…”

10. Othello Suite

    Composed a year later, in 1909, Coleridge-Taylor’s Othello Suite was commissioned by Herbert Beerbohm Tree for his production of the Shakespeare play of the same name at His Majesty’s Theatre in London’s West End.

    The incidental music is rich with haunting melodies, racing dances and a lilting ‘Children’s Intermezzo’ that evokes calm and innocence.