Schola Cantorum of Oxford to Perform in Buckhead

From Friends of Cathedral Music

Schola Cantorum of Oxford will perform a program of traditional choral works at The Cathedral of St. Philip in Buckhead at 8 p.m. on Sept. 26. Tickets for the event cost $20 for general admission, $15 for seniors and students, and $100 for patron tickets, which include two tickets and unreserved but preferred seating in the nave of the Cathedral. Tickets may be purchased online or by calling (404) 237-7582.

Schola Cantorum of Oxford is one of the longest established and most widely known chamber choirs in the United Kingdom. The choir has worked with such highly respected musicians and former patrons as Sir Michael Tippett and Yehudi Menuhin, as well as Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Leonhart, Colin Davis, Mark Elder, and Neville Marriner. The Schola comprises around thirty singers, most of whom are students at Oxford University, and the group is well known worldwide by its long history of recordings and international tours. During the past decade the choir has toured Argentina, China, France, Israel, Mexico, Poland, and throughout the United Kingdom. The Schola’s last tour of the United States was some twenty years ago, and so their stop in Atlanta will truly be a rare and wonderful opportunity to hear this fine ensemble perform live.

Schola Cantorum of Oxford, conducted by James Burton, will present a program of works from the heart of the English Choral tradition. The programme will feature masterpieces by Herbert Howells (Take him, earth, for cherishing), Hubert Parry (Songs of Farewell), and Charles Villiers Stanford’s little heard Latin Magnificat, a tour de force of the a cappella repertoire which is on the same ambitious scale as Bach’s great choral motets.

Schola Cantorum’s program will also include motets from the English Renaissance by composers such as Thomas Weelkes, John Sheppard and Thomas Tallis, as well as works written by living composers who are closely associated with the modern choral scene in Oxford. The concerts will begin with world première performances of a stunning new choral work by Roderick Williams, and the choir will sing a recent work, Te lucis ante terminum, by the choir’s Music Director and Conductor James Burton, which was written to commemorate this year’s anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.