Choir of St. John’s College Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Advent Live, Vol. 2 (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Choir of St. John’s College Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Advent Live, Vol. 2 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:02:57 minutes | 572 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

The sublime Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge return with the second voluume in their Advent series – celebrating the advent season from within the Christian tradition; a season celebrated since at least the sixth century.

his splendid live recording, from within the Chapel of St. John’s College itself, features Christmas favourites, including Britten’s Deo Gracias from A Ceremony of Carols as well as gorgeous performances of lesser known works by modern composers including Jonathan Dove, Arvo Pärt and Paul Manz.

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Choir Of St. John’s College, Cambridge, Andrew Nethsingha – Advent Live, Vol. 3 (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir Of St. John’s College, Cambridge, Andrew Nethsingha – Advent Live, Vol. 3 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:25 minutes | 911 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

The sublime Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge return with the third volume in their Advent series celebrating the advent season from within the Christian tradition; a season celebrated since, at least, the sixth century.

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Choir of St. John’s College Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – New Millenium (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Choir of St. John’s College Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – New Millenium (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:13:24 minutes | 2,40 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

“Contemporary music and Commissioning have been central features of the last fifteen years at St John’s. It’s been a joy to work with talented student composers, singers and instrumental- ists; my own musicianship has been greatly enriched by their creativity and energy… After a 30-month break from sessions during the pandemic, we were very pleased to be able to record again in 2022. The material on this album comes from various times of year, whilst we were also continuing our Magnificat series. For the final sessions in December the outdoor temperature was forty degrees colder than it had been for the previous recording in July! The personnel of the lower voices had also largely changed, but I hope you will hear a successful continuity of sound- world. All the composers are alive today but, at the suggestion of one of them, we have omitted dates of birth so as not to intrude on their privacy. I’ve curated a sequence of music which aims to celebrate some of the broad range of styles in 21st-century choral writing. The premiere of Iain Farrington’s Nova Nova was the final piece in my last St John’s broadcast – I have often enjoyed pushing the boundaries of the Anglican choral tradition!” – Andrew Nethsingha

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Choir Of St. John’s College, Cambridge – Magnificat 3 (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir Of St. John’s College, Cambridge – Magnificat 3 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:55 minutes | 1,28 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Following their critically acclaimed ‘Psalms’ album, St John’s College, Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha present a selection of Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis recordings from January and July 2022. Much of the third volume in their series of Evening Canticles focuses on music in a twenty-year period, from 1945 to 1965. Philip Moore’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were commissioned especially for St John’s College, Cambridge.

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Andrew Nethsingha, Choir Of St John’s College, Cambridge – John Sheppard: Gaude, Gaude, Gaude Maria – Sacred Choral Works (2013/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Andrew Nethsingha, Choir Of St John’s College, Cambridge – John Sheppard: Gaude, Gaude, Gaude Maria – Sacred Choral Works (2013/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:05 minutes | 751 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Not much is known about the English composer John Sheppard. When he was born, and where he grew up, is lost to history but most scholars place his birth at somewhere between 1515 and 1520. This places him in one of the most turbulent periods in English church history, something that can be heard on this disc in the wide stylistic range he used in order to adapt to the quickly changing politics of the day. The sophisticated six part texture of Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria suggests the influence of Queen Mary who encouraged elaborate sacred composition. It is one of Sheppard’s most thrilling and ambitious works.

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Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – The Psalms (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – The Psalms (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:46 minutes | 914 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Classics

With sympathetic chants by composers spanning a full three hundred years, this programme finds the choir of St John’s on top form and offers a masterclass in the genre.

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Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, Joseph Wicks & Andrew Nethsingha – Vaughan Williams: Mass in G Minor (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge, Joseph Wicks & Andrew Nethsingha – Vaughan Williams: Mass in G Minor (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:30 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Andrew Nethsingha and The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice with a new recording of choral works by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Many of the works were composed in the years immediately following the event, including O clap your hands, Lord, thou hast been our refuge and the Mass in G minor which leads the programme. Vaughan Williams turned his attention to liturgical music following his service as a wagon orderly during the Great War. Ursula Vaughan Williams, his second wife and biographer, wrote that such work ‘gave Ralph vivid awareness of how men died’. It is perhaps unsurprising that in many of the texts to which he turned after the 1918 Armistice, the fragility and weakness of humanity becomes a recurrent theme. Despite being described as a ‘confirmed atheist’ by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, his heightened exploration of Christian texts, symbols, and images after the War might rather be understood both as an attempt to grapple anew with what might lie, as he put it, ‘beyond sense and knowledge’, and to search for consolation in religious and other inherited traditions amid a world irrevocably changed.The fifth release in their series with Signum, the Choir of St John’s have received glowing praise for their previous releases, culminating in the choral prize at the 2017 BBC Music Magazine Awards for their debut release of works by Jonathan Harvey (Deo SIGCD456).

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Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Pious Anthems and Voluntaries (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Pious Anthems and Voluntaries (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:23:53 minutes | 1,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Pious Anthems & Voluntaries features a new nine-part cycle, inspired by the architecture of the College and its Chapel, and composed by Michael Finnissy, St John’s Composer in Residence 2016-19.

Michael Finnissy’s first work for the Choir, John the Baptist, was commissioned for the 2014 Advent Carol Service, and went on to win the British Composer Award for Liturgical Music (now known as the Ivors Awards). The piece was later recorded for the album Christmas with St John’s.

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Choir of St John’s College Cambridge, City of London Sinfonia, George Guest – Charpentier: Messe de minuit pour Noel / Poulenc: Motets (2007) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir of St John’s College Cambridge, City of London Sinfonia, George Guest – Charpentier: Messe de minuit pour Noel / Poulenc: Motets (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:22 minutes | 958 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos

Marc-Antoine Charpentier, one of the greatest of French baroque composers, has some representation on disc but this CD complements a Mass of his with motets by Poulenc. The truly joyous Midnight Mass for Christmas, in which each movement is based on a traditional French carol or noël, has long been a favourite. Joining the Mass are the appealing, unaccompanied Four Christmas Motets and Four Lenten Motets as well as an independent Salve Regina by Poulenc. Poulenc came to religion late but threw himself whole-heartedly into the writing of choral compositions, and these works reaffirm his high ranking as a choral composer.

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Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Mozart: Coronation Mass, Ave Verum Corpus, Missa Brevis & Exsultate, Jubilate (2012/2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Mozart: Coronation Mass, Ave Verum Corpus, Missa Brevis & Exsultate, Jubilate (2012/2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:33 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos Records

On this album, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge performs alongside four soloists and the period instrument ensemble St John’s Sinfonia. The tenor Sam Furness and bass George Humphreys both started their careers as Choral Scholars with this very choir. The mezzo-soprano Frances Bourne is in great demand on the concert platform and has sung with many of Europe’s leading conductors; the soprano Susan Gritton has amassed a vast discography that has earned her two Grammy nominations and includes, for Chandos, recordings of works by Haydn, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Vaughan Williams.

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Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Magnificat 2 (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge & Andrew Nethsingha – Magnificat 2 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:20 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Andrew Nethsingha and The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge release the second volume in the highly praised ‘Magnificat’ series, presenting nine settings of the Evening Canticles by celebrated Organist-Composers, written between 1932 and 1952 and non-church musicians from 1974-1989.

The recording culminates with a contemporary setting by Julian Anderson, composed for the Chapel’s 150th Anniversary and commissioned for the College Choir.

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