The Choir Of Trinity College, Cambridge

Voted the fifth best choir in the world in Gramophone magazine’s ‘20 Greatest Choirs’, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge comprises around 30 Choral Scholars and two Organ Scholars. Trinity College’s choral tradition dates back to the all-male choir of the 14th century; Directors of Music have included Charles Villiers Stanford, Alan Gray, Raymond Leppard and Richard Marlow, who introduced female voices and instituted the choir's recording programme in the 1980s. After early LP releases on Pearl the choir established a fruitful relationship with Conifer Classics, releasing some 30 recordings in little more than a decade before industry buy-outs subsumed Conifer into first BMG and then Sony. The choir moved to the record label of internet arts network GMN, before licensing the final recordings of the Marlow era to Chandos. Stephen Layton’s arrival as Director of Music in 2006 would ignite another transformative phase and a further change of label to Hyperion Records. With a new emphasis on contemporary music the choir has become a leading champion of the choral avant-garde with accolades including Grammy and Gramophone Award nominations, and a BBC Music Magazine Award. Layton’s tenure has also seen a renewed dedication to large-scale Baroque repertoire (Bach, Handel) with leading soloists and period orchestras the Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and to the heartland of the 20th century choral tradition (Howells, Finzi, Britten).