Three renowned boys choirs sing together at the Royal Opera House

This coming Monday the spectacular Paul Hamlyn Hall at the Royal Opera House - pictured - will resound to the combined voices of three of the leading boys choirs in the UK.

For the first time the Vaughan's Schola will stand alongside Tiffin Boys Choir and Trinity Boys Choir to give a joint performance in what promises to be a unique and rather wonderful occasion.
 
The Royal Opera House has invited our three choirs to sing as we are the three schools who have provided the boys chorus singing at the Opera House for many years. If you have been to an opera at Covent Garden in the past fifteen years and there have been boys singing in it, the chances are that you were listening to boys from one of these three choirs.

Each choir will perform on its own before the boys will join together, conducted by Renato Balsadonna, Chorus Master of the Royal Opera to sing the closing scene of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretal.
 
The event is open to the public. Tickets, which are free, can be ordered at the Royal Opera House website, or can be requested at the Box Office at the Royal Opera House on the morning of the concert.

Further details available here at the Royal Opera House Website.

At 1 pm on Monday 2 March the boys of the Schola Cantorum will sing a lunchtime recital at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The trebles of the choir will join with boys from Tiffin School in Kingston and Trinity School in Croydon for what promises to be a unique and rather wonderful occasion. Given in the spectacular setting of the Paul Hamyln Hall, the concert brings these three leading boys choirs, who have provided the boys chorus singing at the Opera House for many years, together for the first time. Each choir will perform on its own before the boys will join together, conducted by Renato Balsadonna, Chorus Master of the Royal Opera to sing the closing scene of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretal.
The event is open to the public. Tickets, which are free, can be ordered at the Royal Opera House website, or can be requested at the Box Office at the Royal Opera House on the morning of the concert.
Further details available here at the Royal Opera House Website.
- See more at: http://www.scholacantorum.co.uk/media/news/default.aspx?id=175#sthash.tGIbR6mV.dpuf

At 1 pm on Monday 2 March the boys of the Schola Cantorum will sing a lunchtime recital at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The trebles of the choir will join with boys from Tiffin School in Kingston and Trinity School in Croydon for what promises to be a unique and rather wonderful occasion. Given in the spectacular setting of the Paul Hamyln Hall, the concert brings these three leading boys choirs, who have provided the boys chorus singing at the Opera House for many years, together for the first time. Each choir will perform on its own before the boys will join together, conducted by Renato Balsadonna, Chorus Master of the Royal Opera to sing the closing scene of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretal.
The event is open to the public. Tickets, which are free, can be ordered at the Royal Opera House website, or can be requested at the Box Office at the Royal Opera House on the morning of the concert.
Further details available here at the Royal Opera House Website.
- See more at: http://www.scholacantorum.co.uk/media/news/default.aspx?id=175#sthash.tGIbR6mV.dpuf

At 1 pm on Monday 2 March the boys of the Schola Cantorum will sing a lunchtime recital at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The trebles of the choir will join with boys from Tiffin School in Kingston and Trinity School in Croydon for what promises to be a unique and rather wonderful occasion. Given in the spectacular setting of the Paul Hamyln Hall, the concert brings these three leading boys choirs, who have provided the boys chorus singing at the Opera House for many years, together for the first time. Each choir will perform on its own before the boys will join together, conducted by Renato Balsadonna, Chorus Master of the Royal Opera to sing the closing scene of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretal.
The event is open to the public. Tickets, which are free, can be ordered at the Royal Opera House website, or can be requested at the Box Office at the Royal Opera House on the morning of the concert.
Further details available here at the Royal Opera House Website.
- See more at: http://www.scholacantorum.co.uk/media/news/default.aspx?id=175#sthash.tGIbR6mV.dpuf

At 1 pm on Monday 2 March the boys of the Schola Cantorum will sing a lunchtime recital at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The trebles of the choir will join with boys from Tiffin School in Kingston and Trinity School in Croydon for what promises to be a unique and rather wonderful occasion. Given in the spectacular setting of the Paul Hamyln Hall, the concert brings these three leading boys choirs, who have provided the boys chorus singing at the Opera House for many years, together for the first time. Each choir will perform on its own before the boys will join together, conducted by Renato Balsadonna, Chorus Master of the Royal Opera to sing the closing scene of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretal.
The event is open to the public. Tickets, which are free, can be ordered at the Royal Opera House website, or can be requested at the Box Office at the Royal Opera House on the morning of the concert.
Further details available here at the Royal Opera House Website.
- See more at: http://www.scholacantorum.co.uk/media/news/default.aspx?id=175#sthash.tGIbR6mV.dpuf

At 1 pm on Monday 2 March the boys of the Schola Cantorum will sing a lunchtime recital at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
The trebles of the choir will join with boys from Tiffin School in Kingston and Trinity School in Croydon for what promises to be a unique and rather wonderful occasion. Given in the spectacular setting of the Paul Hamyln Hall, the concert brings these three leading boys choirs, who have provided the boys chorus singing at the Opera House for many years, together for the first time. Each choir will perform on its own before the boys will join together, conducted by Renato Balsadonna, Chorus Master of the Royal Opera to sing the closing scene of Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretal.
The event is open to the public. Tickets, which are free, can be ordered at the Royal Opera House website, or can be requested at the Box Office at the Royal Opera House on the morning of the concert.
Further details available here at the Royal Opera House Website.
- See more at: http://www.scholacantorum.co.uk/media/news/default.aspx?id=175#sthash.tGIbR6mV.dpuf

Schola to sing at King's College, Cambridge

Over the next few weeks the Schola will sing at King's College, Cambridge on two occasions.

On Monday 9 March the whole choir is to sing Evensong alongside Kings Voices, under the direction of Ben Parry. We are very pleased to have been invited to participate in this service, conducted by the director of the National Youth Choir.

That evening we will sing Noble's Evening Service in B minor, Duruflé's Ubi Caritas and Byrd's Civitas Sancti Tui.

A few weeks later, on Good Friday, a number of the trebles are to return to sing in a very exciting event, a performance of James MacMillan's St Luke Passion, alongside boys from Trinity School, Croydon. This performance, with the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by the composer, will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. James MacMillan is a patron of the Vaughan's Schola and wrote a piece for the choir to mark the School's Centenary in September 2014.

The Vaughan may be 100 years old this academic year but the Chapel at Kings is celebrating its 500th birthday in 2015. King's College and its Chapel were founded by Henry VI (1421-71) in 1441. When Henry was killed at the Tower of London in 1471 work on the buildings stopped - no further building was carried out for twenty years until Richard III came to the throne - Richard ordered that anyone holding things up should be imprisoned!

Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 by Henry Tudor, thus ending the Wars of the Roses that had held up the completion of the building for so long. Henry VII was keen that the Chapel be finished quickly and work continued in earnest. When Henry VII died in 1508 he left instructions and money in his will for the final completion. It therefore fell to Henry VIII to complete the building,  adding the extraordinary fan-vaulted roof (the largest of its kind in the world), the stained-glass windows (which were removed for safe-keeping during the Second World War) and the Chapel's remarkable wooden screen which supports the organ.

There is a wonderful Virtual Tour of the Chapel available here.

The peformance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony

On Thursday 12 February musicians from the Vaughan sat alongside our orchestra in residence, Southbank Sinfonia for a performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony. This was a wonderful occasion and marked a new level in the development of our fantastic partnership.

All at Cardinal Vaughan are deeply grateful to the musicians and staff of Southbank Sinfonia, and especially conductor David Corkhill who led everyone through this amazing piece with such great wisdom, experience and kindness.

These photographs and two short videos give a sense of the occasion.

This is a recording of the Second Movement.

Mahler's Fourth Symphony

This week the Music Department will be focused on our annual side-by-side collaboration with the wonderful Southbank Sinfonia.

Previous years have seen us perform works such as Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Sibelius Second Symphony, Brahms Second Symphony and last year Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade (see the entry on this blog).

This year though we take it to a new level as the boys and girls tackle the music of Gustav Mahler (pictured)  for the first time as they prepare a performance of his extraordinary Fourth Symphony.

Mahler composed this work in 1900 and it is generally regarded as the most approachable of his symphonies. It requires modest forces by Mahlerian standards  - no trombones or tuba and only four horns - lots of woodwind are needed though including the contra bassoon, E flat and bass clarinet, four flutes and 3 oboes.

The work explores a poem drawn from a collection of German folk poems called Der Knaben Wunderhorn which was incredibly popular in German in the nineteenth century and had a huge influence on Mahler's thinking. The poem, called The Heavenly Life, explores the wonder and difficulties of childhood - something that fascinated Mahler. In the last movement, a soprano sings a setting of the poem - and all the themes that we have heard building up to this point are brought together to form the melody of the song.

It is an amazing piece of music - something quite outside of the experience of the majority of the pupils playing it I am sure  - and it will be a revelation for them.

If you would like to hear it then please do join us at the concert, which is at 6 pm on Thursday 12 February at St John's, Waterloo. Entrance is free and you get a glass of wine thrown in! David Corkill conducts and Maud Millar (an Old Vaughanian) is the soprano soloist.

Here is a complete performance of the work by the peerless Claudio Abbado and his Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Listen just to the opening and the way that it magically captures your attention with the sleigh bells.

Cymatics - the science of visualizing audio frequencies

An amazing film about visualizing audio frequencies.


Everything you see is real.

This webpage tells you how they did it!

http://nigelstanford.com/Cymatics/