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The Clerks of Christ Church are a religious music group from Christ Church, Oxford. It was founded in 2001 in response to a popular demand for a group providing flexible programming for a variety of occasions. Its intention was to perform a total spectrum of vocal music; Sacred music from all eras (particularly Renaissance), and secular music from mediaeval rounds, through to madrigals, folk song arrangements, romantic part songs, spirituals, comic songs and close harmony arrangements of pop songs and the American songbook. The Clerks of Christ Church serves as a welcome opportunity to explore alternative and often neglected areas of the choral repertoire. All members of the group are (or have at some time been) members of Christ Church Cathedral Choir, but have performed with other consorts including The Sixteen, Tenebrae, Huelgas Ensemble, European Voices, The Clerks Group, Cardinall's Musick and The Gabrielli Consort.
The Clerks of Christ Church have performed in venues as far apart as Christ Church, Oxford, and Christchurch, New Zealand (where they toured in 2002, 2003 and 2004); as various as Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons (Raymond Blanc's restaurant and hotel) and Dorchester and Douai Abbeys; as well as performing for the memorial service of Lord Jenkins, the Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and in the presence of The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair M.P. In July 2004 The Clerks of Christ Church made their film debut in Sir Richard Eyre's Stage Beauty , starring Billy Crudup and Claire Danes.
The group's debut disc, In Pace, was released in 2004. The Clerks of Christ Church have now signed exclusively for SOMM Records. A Garland of the Elizabethan is their first disc since signing, and will be followed by a disc celebrating the quincentenary of Thomas Tallis' birth, the music being Tallis' contribution to the 1575 publication Cantiones Sacrae.
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William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. Widely considered to be one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance and one of the greatest British composers, he had a huge influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard, and consort music. Although he produced sacred music for Anglican services, sometime during the 1570s he became a Roman Catholic and wrote Catholic sacred music later in his life.
Alfred George Deller, CBE, was an English singer and one of the main figures in popularising the return of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music during the 20th century.
Thomas Tallis was an English Renaissance composer who occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. He is considered one of England's greatest composers, and he is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship.
John Taverner was an English composer and organist, regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. He is best-known for Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas and The Western Wynde Mass, and Missa Corona Spinea is also often viewed as a masterwork.
The Chapel Royal is an establishment in the Royal Household serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the British Royal Family. Historically it was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applied to the chapels within royal palaces, most notably at Hampton Court and St James's Palace, and other chapels within the Commonwealth designated as such by the monarch. Within the Church of England, some of these royal chapels may also be referred to as Royal Peculiars, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the monarch. The Dean of Her Majesty's Chapels Royal is a royal household office that in modern times is usually held by the Bishop of London.
The Tallis Scholars is a British professional early music vocal ensemble normally consisting of two singers per part, with a core group of ten singers. They specialise in performing a cappella sacred vocal music.
Spem in alium is a 40-part Renaissance motet by Thomas Tallis, composed in c. 1570 for eight choirs of five voices each. It is considered by some critics to be the greatest piece of English early music. H. B. Collins described it in 1929 as Tallis's "crowning achievement", along with his Lamentations.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), English art and high culture reached a pinnacle known as the height of the English Renaissance. Elizabethan music experienced a shift in popularity from sacred to secular music and the rise of instrumental music. Professional musicians were employed by the Church of England, the nobility, and the rising middle-class.
Phantasm is a viol consort based in England. It was founded in 1994 by Laurence Dreyfus. It catapulted into international prominence when its debut CD won a Gramophone Award for the Best Baroque Instrumental Recording of 1997. Since then, they have released seventeen further recordings, won several awards, and in the words of their website, "have become recognised as the most exciting viol consort active on the world scene today". In 2005 Phantasm were named Consort-in-Residence at Oxford University, where they regularly appeared at the Holywell Music Room and other University venues. In 2010, Phantasm became Consort-in-Residence at Magdalen College, Oxford where they perform in Magdalen College's Chapel and collaborate with Magdalen College Choir.
James Thomas Bowman CBE is an English countertenor. His career spans opera, oratorio, contemporary music and solo recitals. In 2010 it was announced that he would give his last London concert in 2011 at the Wigmore Hall, although he would continue to give recitals outside the capital. A few years previously he retired from the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace in London, after a decade of service.
Jeremy Summerly is a British conductor. He was educated at Lichfield Cathedral School, Winchester College, and New College, Oxford. While at Oxford he conducted the New College Chamber Orchestra and the Oxford Chamber Choir. After graduating with a first-class honours degree in Music in 1982, he started work as a Studio Manager for BBC Radio, while pursuing postgraduate research in historical musicology at King's College London. Since 1991 he has been a presenter and reviewer for BBC's Radios 3 and 4, in particular for Radio 4's Front Row, and Radio 3's Record Review.
Andrew Carwood is the Director of Music at St Paul's Cathedral in London and director of his own group, The Cardinall's Musick.
"If We Are the Body" is the debut single by Christian rock band Casting Crowns. Written by Mark Hall and produced by Mark A. Miller and Steven Curtis Chapman, it was released as the lead single from the band's 2003 self-titled debut album through Beach Street Records on July 26, 2003. The song, originally written by Hall as a "teaching tool" for his youth group, is a CCM and acoustic rock song. It incorporates the violin, mandolin, and accordion in its arrangement and questions why the Christian church does not minister impartially.
Stile Antico is a British vocal ensemble, specialising in polyphonic early music composed prior to the eighteenth century. Like groups such as the Tallis Scholars or The Sixteen, it has roots in the choral tradition of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, but, unusually for groups tackling complex polyphony, Stile Antico has no conductor. The singers rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, an approach which has been praised by critics.
Dr David Skinner is a British musicologist and choir director. He is Director of Music at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He co-founded the Cardinall's Musick and Magdala.
The Clerks are a British early music vocal ensemble. They have authored a series of recordings and concerts featuring music by Johannes Ockeghem, Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obrecht and other composers of the Franco-Flemish Renaissance.
Peter Phillips is a British choral conductor and musicologist. He was the founder of The Tallis Scholars in 1973 and of Gimell Records in 1980.
Caroline Trevor is an English contralto, focused on early music and Baroque music in historically informed performance. She has been one of two alto voices in the award-winning ensemble The Tallis Scholars since 1982.
Christopher Watson is a British tenor specialising in Early music, Baroque and Contemporary repertoire.
Harvey Brough is an English tenor, instrumentalist, composer, producer and arranger. Starting at the age of six as a chorister at Coventry Cathedral, and achieving greatest prominence as founder, leader, musical director and producer of Harvey and the Wallbangers, he has worked in a wide range of musical genres including classical, early music, pop and soul, jazz, folk and world music.