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2024-2025 Season

8 July 2025

Jacobean Genius

St Vedast-alias-Foster

29 April 2025

Evensong

Charterhouse

1 April 2025

From Darkness
to Light

Holy Sepulchre

25 Jan 2025

Chapel Royal Masters Workshop

St Mary-at-Hill

17 Dec 2024

A Rose has Sprung

St Mary-at-Hill

17 Dec 2024

Edwardian Splendour

St Mary's Bourne Street

Evensong at The Charterhouse

5:30pm | 29 April 2025

Evensong is enjoying a renaissance as a showcase of choral tradition and the new music of today.

City Chamber Choir’s Evensong at Charterhouse will feature the exceptional music of two female British composers – our President Cecilia McDowall and Ruth Gipps.  Alongside these will be Orlando Gibbons’ (‘The English Palestrina’) invigorating anthem ‘O Clap your hands’ and Percy Whitlock’s ethereal ‘Be Still, my Soul’.

The Charterhouse
Charterhouse Square
Barbican
London EC1M 6AN

Jacobean Genius

This concert showcases the leading composer of the early-Stuart period at the 400th anniversary of his death, along with works by his contemporaries, and present-day composers he has inspired.

Gibbons’ rich, polyphonic style led him to be dubbed the ‘English Palestrina’ before England’s descent into Civil War and Puritanism. 

City Chamber Choir, led by conductor Stephen Jones, will perform with period instrument group Orlando Camerata, playing Baroque viols.

Orlando Gibbons and his legacy

Interval drinks will be served in the beautiful secluded courtyard of St Vedast, Foster Lane.

7pm 8 July 2025
St Vedast-alias-Foster
London EC2V 6HH

Tickets on the door | £20 
Early Bird until 24-June-25 | £17
Student | £10
Under-12s free

Recent Events

From Darkness to Light

Inspirational choral music from Finzi to Howells

7:30pm Tuesday 1 April 2025

Holy Sepulchre London EC1A 2DQ

An evening of glorious music awaits you in the majestic setting of the Musicians’ Church, and includes a not to be missed, rarely performed An English Mass by Herbert Howells.

Finzi | Requiem da Camera
Howells | An English Mass
Bob Chilcott | My Prayer
Farrar | Margaritae Sorori
Rota | Sonata per orchestra da camera

The bonds of friendship entwine our programme. Gerald Finzi’s beautiful and intimate Requiem da Camera was written in memory of his esteemed teacher Ernest Farrar, killed in the final days of the First World War, and Farrar’s moving and lyrical partsong Margaritae Sorori which follows is a fitting valediction. 

Howells wrote his turbulent An English Mass, a work full of agony and ecstasy, for Harold Darke (organist of St Michael’s, Cornhill 1916-1966) and his St Michael’s Singers. Chilcott’s passionate ‘My prayer’ and Nino Rota’s characterful Sonata per orchestra da camera, at turns elegiac, heroic, pastoral and spritely, complete our programme.

Tickets on the door | £25 
Early Bird until 10-March-25 | £22
Student | £10
Under-12s free

Saturday 25 January 2025

Chapel Royal Masters
of the 17th Century

Come and Sing With Us Workshop

10am-5pm 
Saturday 25 January 2025
St Mary-at-Hill, Lovat Lane, London EC3R 8EE

Stephen Jones Workshop leader and director of City Chamber Choir
Works by Gibbons, Ramsey, Dering and Purcell
 

Ticket + Printed music booklet | £38.50
Ticket  | £35 
Under-12s free

Our workshop explores some of the wonderful music by Chapel Royal musicians of the 17th Century, a significant share of which is given to Orlando Gibbons (the “Palestrina” of English Jacobean music) in this the 400th anniversary of his death. 

We include a gorgeous and moving lament by Ramsey on the death of Prince Henry, as well as music by Richard Dering, a leading musician in Queen Henrietta Maria’s private chapel. Finally we cannot but include some of the exquisite music by Purcell from the beginning of his career.

Stephen Jones | conductor

Ivan Linford | organ

Tickets on the door | £15 
Student | £10, Under-12s free

A Rose has Sprung

A Christmas Celebration

Tuesday 17 December 2024

6:00pm Wine & Mince Pies
6:30pm Concert
St Mary-at-Hill, Lovat Lane, London ECR 8EE

Our programme this year centres around Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, set by Praetorius, and explores other composers’ settings on a similar theme. These gentle items are interspersed with celebratory and joyful pieces across the ages by Sweelinck, Mendelssohn, Bob Chilcott, Leighton, and even antiphonal music by Handl (without an ‘e’) across the church! The audience will need their singing hats on for Carols and we are delighted to be premiering a new piece by Samuel Wilson.

Guaranteed to get you into the Christmas spirit!

Praetorius | Es ist ein Ros entsprungen

Handl | Resonet in laudibus
McDowall | There is no rose
Leighton | Lully lulla
Sweelinck | Hodie Christus natus est
Gibbons | Song 46 ‘Christmas Day’
Briggs | A tender shoot
Bullard | Scots nativity
Chilcott | Gaudete
Stanford | A carol for Christmas
Wilson | Westward leading
Mendelssohn | Frohlocket, ihr
 Völker auf Erden

 There will be a charity collection for Veterans’ Growth ‘improving veterans’ mental health through horticulture.   veteransgrowth.org 

Tickets on the door | £20 
Early Bird Discount until 25-Oct-24 | £17
Student | £10
Under-12s free

Edwardian Splendour

Stanford | Eight Partsongs Op.119
Brahms | Fünf Gesänge Op.104
Parry | Dear Lord and Father 
Whitlock | Be still, my soul
Stanford | Fantasia & Toccata Op.57 
Ethel Smyth | Komm, süsser Tod
Stanford | For lo, I raise up Op.145

 City Chamber Choir commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of the Irish composer, Charles Villiers Stanford, with a programme that is half secular, half sacred. There is plenty of Stanford, as you would expect, plus music by his great friend and colleague Parry, Brahms, by whom he was immensely influenced, and Percy Whitlock, one of his pupils, plus music by his contemporary, Ethel Smyth.


The Eight Partsongs op. 119 include Stanford’s famous The Blue Bird, the Brahms pieces are his last partsongs. Stanford’s op. 145 is a remarkable tour-de-force with a glorious organ part.

 

2025-2026 Save the Dates!

Thursday
6 Nov 2025

Organ Jewels

St Mary's Bourne Street

Tuesday
16 Dec 2025

Christmas Concert

St Mary's Bourne Street

Saturday
24 Jan 2026

Come & Sing Workshop

St Mary-at-Hill

Tuesday
24 March 2026

Five Season Strings

Gresham Centre

April 2026

Evensong

Charterhouse

Tuesday
8 July 2026

Summer Celebration

St Vedast-alias-Foster

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