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The Clerkes of Old Sarum





Our Conductor


The Clerkes of Old Sarum is a group of singers who like to sing unaccompanied music of the 14-17th centuries. We do earlier and later stuff as well, but that is our core repertoire. Requests to sing some of the slushier bits of the Victorian choral repertoire (e.g. S S Wesley, Stanford etc) also sympathetically considered.

The choir specializes in religious music for the services in the "English Choral Tradition". This means doing (all) the services for a weekend or longer at cathedrals and some churches. We do between four and six visits to various ecclesiastical establishments around the country every year. We also like doing weddings.

We do not rehearse on a regular basis, instead we turn up and rehearse essentially one day ahead of what we are doing. This requires either good sight reading ability or quick learning (we don't mind which). It also means that it doesn't really matter where you live.

The members of the choir come from all parts of the UK and are of all ages. We welcome singers who can, or would like to learn to, sing in the choir "style" which is with warmth, commitment but little or no vibrato.

A picture is sometimes worth, at least a few, words. This was taken at our visit to Bath Abbey in February 2009.

One can see why we are sometimes called the "The Rainbow Choir"

If you are interested in joining, or want more information, then please contact our conductor:

Tigger Burton
22 Delbush Avenue
Sandhills
Oxford OX3 8DZ

Telephone: 01865 741101
Dirk Koopman
High View
Graffham
West Sussex GU28 0QE

Telephone: 01798 888005

Tigger edits most of the earlier music we sing and thus we feel that the following samples of our work are publishable on this medium.

These works are Copyright © 1993 Clerkes of Old Sarum. Please listen to them or link to them but all broadcasting, distribution and any commercial rights are retained by the Clerkes of Old Sarum.

These are VBR encoded MP3s, recorded live during actual services in Bristol Cathedral in 1993 and are in no particular order:

Compare and contrast with this week's Choir on Radio 3's Choral Evensong. (This link is only here so I can easily hear last week's evensong which I invariably miss).

Anthems

Call to Remembrance - Farrant 1m 52s (2.6Mb)
Ave Maria - Parsons 3m 54s (5.5Mb)
Ave Maria - Josquin 4m 18s (6.1Mb)
Ne Irascaris - Byrd 7m 14s (10.4Mb)
Ne Reminiscaris - Lassus 3m 14s (4.9Mb)
Sacerdotes Domini - Byrd 1m 20s (1.9Mb)
Christus Factus Est - Bruckner 4m 13s (5.7Mb)
Insanae et Vanae Curae - Haydn 7m 1s (10.7Mb)

Preces and Responses

Preces - Byrd 1m 14s (1.8Mb)
Responses - Byrd 3m 41s (5.0Mb)
Preces - Kelsall 1m 4s (1.5Mb)
Responses - Kelsall 3m 55s (5.4Mb)

Canticles

2nd Service, Magnificat - Byrd 3m 53s (5.7Mb)
2nd Service, Nunc Dimitis - Byrd 2m 05s (3.1Mb)
Magnificat - Caustun 3m 59s (5.9Mb)
Nunc Dimitis - Caustun 2m 17s (3.4Mb)
Magnificat D minor - Walmisley 4m 26s (6.5Mb)
Nunc Dimitis D minor - Walmisley 1m 58s (3.0Mb)

When we have sorted some of the copyright issues out, we will be making more samples available.

The Clerkes of Old Sarum were originally formed from the members of the Kingston Polytechnic Chamber Choir after the untimely death of its conductor John Kelsall