About the choir
Singing with the Coro de Santa Maria de Belém in Portugal, May 2008
The Renaissance Choir is regarded as one of the UK’s finest amateur choirs. Like its professional counterpart, “the Sixteen”, the choir’s repertoire imaginatively balances unaccompanied choral music from the Renaissance period with 19th and 20th century works. Although relatively small in number, the choir is accomplished in singing music in both double and triple choir form. Particular specialisms include the works of William Byrd, Thomas Tallis and Tómas Luis da Victoria.
The choir has performed in many prestigious venues in Europe, including Notre-Dame in Paris, Chartres cathedral and Versailles. Events such as the Prague Spring International Festival (Czech Republic) have also featured the choir. In 2006, in Budapest, the choir performed Tallis’s towering 40-part motet Spem in Alium, with the internationally renowned Budapest Monteverdi Choir. In 2008 the choir enjoyed a trip to the Lisbon region and sang in some truly fantastic venues, including Mosteiro dos Jerónimos.
The choir has given the world premier of Rodrigo’s ‘Cantico de San Francisco’ at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Successive conductors have recovered “lost” Renaissance works (usually masses) which have frequently been performed for the first time in several hundred years in the city in which they were composed. Recent examples include masses by Brumel and Josquin (both performed in France), Hammerschmidt (Prague), Comes (Valencia) and Robert Jones (Brecon).