spiritdei

5 years on and we're back. I appreciated the supportive comments, and I understand that the College and BBC would want to protect profits. After suffering painful takedowns, we feel that everything is now more or less stable.
This year, we are rolling out original content, including shorts and long-form videos. We hope to find the right mix and continue to reference the music (mainly from Kings and Sir Stephen) that has been allowed to remain. We hope to see you and value your support!

4 months ago | [YT] | 12

spiritdei

Season's Greetings to Everyone! And to those to whom it applies Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Sadly, it seems there will be no Easter Concert on the BBC this year due to Covid restrictions but, Spiritdei has a number of activities to mark the Season.
We have a number of New Playlists and we are rolling out Youtube's chapter feature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRWew...

4 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 15

spiritdei

Watching live. The entire senior male section was pulled when two choristers tested positive. Their role is now covered by just 6 King's Singers, some of whom sung previously at King's or attended other Cambridge colleges. Amazing!

5 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 102

spiritdei

Merry Christmas Everyone! Less than an hour to go before King's College 2020's Carols from Kings will be broadcast on UK's BBC2 at 17:30 GMT. We are not able to post recordings but we will have related content on our patreon site www.patreon.com/spiritdei . The site will reflect the results of our recent poll on the kind of content you would like to see.

5 years ago | [YT] | 133

spiritdei

Merry Christmas Everyone! We just started a Patreon, can you tell us what you would like to receive?

5 years ago | [YT] | 24

spiritdei

DECEMBER 17, 2020 Preparations for filming the famous Carols from King’s were hit after two of those due to take part tested positive Covid-19.

Last-minute swap needed as BBC film Carols from King’s in Cambridge after two test positive for Covid-19
The choral scholars affected, who are from the same household, are adult members of the choir of King’s College, Cambridge.

They were among 14 who had been due to join 16 boy choristers for the festive spectacle, which is broadcast on BBC Two on Christmas Eve.

It meant some of these adult members of the lower voice choir had to go into self-isolation.

With filming due to take place, there was a late call-up for six of The King’s Singers, an internationally renowned vocal group founded by former choral scholars from the University of Cambridge college.

They stepped in at 48 hours’ notice and sang with the young choristers for the first time only minutes before filming began in King’s College Chapel for what is an institution of Christmas television for so many viewers.


The two groups stayed at a safe distance for the duration of the concert, overseen for the second time by Daniel Hyde, who took up the post of director of music in October 2019.

For the first time in its history, the concert took place with no congregation.

The Rev Dr Stephen Cherry, dean of King’s College, said: “We are all hugely grateful to The King’s Singers for stepping up at the last minute.


“They have shown tremendous goodwill and consummate professionalism. Our young choristers also responded very positively and with real maturity to the several challenges faced in reimagining the programme, and together they have enabled us to offer a wonderful Christmas service at extraordinarily short notice.

“King’s College Choir has been preparing for our Christmas broadcasts for months while following strict safety protocols, so it was particularly disappointing that the choral scholars couldn’t be with us for the filming.

“In a year when so many will be spending Christmas in a way unlike any other in living memory, we were determined to do whatever we could to offer a meaningful and beautiful Christmas service.

“We’re delighted with the result of the remarkable efforts of so many people at King’s and at the BBC, and we look forward to sharing Carols from King’s with viewers across the country.”

Thankfully, the two choral scholars who had positive test results have suffered only mild symptoms. Together with the choral scholars, who are in precautionary self-isolation, they have received welfare and pastoral support from King’s College.

Filming for Carols from King’s at King’s College, Cambridge. Picture: Geoff Robinson PhotographyFilming for Carols from King’s at King’s College, Cambridge. Picture: Geoff Robinson Photography
Alan Holland, executive producer, for the BBC, said: “Carols from King’s is a cornerstone of the BBC’s Christmas programming and we are delighted that The King’s Singers were able to join us.

“That significant changes were successfully made at such short notice is testament to the dedication and determination of the musicians and the teams at King’s College and the BBC.”

The King’s Singers were formed in 1968 when six recent choral scholars from King’s College gave a concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. The group was made up of two counter-tenors, a tenor, two baritones and a bass - a formation maintained ever since.

Filming for Carols from King’s at King’s College, Cambridge. Picture: Geoff Robinson Photography
www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/ by Paul Brackley- paul.brackley@iliffemedia.co.uk

5 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 103

spiritdei

The Guardian UK online edition by Harriet Sherwood @harrietsherwood Sun 29 Nov 2020 06.45 GMT


Carols from King's to be sung in an empty chapel for the first time in a century.

For many of us, it is the moment when Christmas really starts: the soaring voice of a boy soloist at King’s College, Cambridge opening its iconic Christmas Eve service with Once in Royal David’s City.

As usual, this year – remarkably, given the pandemic – the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 4. But there will be a major difference: instead of hundreds of people packed into the medieval chapel, its pews will be empty.

“The congregation normally joins in with full-throated singing at verse three [of Once in Royal David’s City] – all those people, squeezed in, sharing this magical moment,” Stephen Cherry, the dean of the chapel, told the Observer.

This year, instead of the congregation physically present, “they will be in their kitchens or in their cars or wrapping presents. We hope that, wherever they are, people will join in with the carols.”

5 years ago | [YT] | 18

spiritdei

Just as last year we've put together a playlist of this year's carols using previous year's favorites. King's is likely to put the carols on sale before long if they follow recent practice. I draw your attention to the penultimate carol, Sir Stephen's own arrangement of Away in a Manger. Very moving for the Chrous to interpret such a piece as that, now. www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

5 years ago | [YT] | 69

spiritdei

Seasons Greetings Everyone! The carols will go out this evening on UK Television BBC2 at 5 PM GMT. We are no longer permitted to upload the carols indeed we have recently received copyright strikes on very old carols. So we hope Spiritdei can survive it all. I have posted a picture that appeared on the front page of the Times Newspaper yesterday (Dec 23, 2019). It shows this year's choristers in sombre mood. I'm sure their singing this year under new Music Director Daniel Hyde does Sir Stephen's memory proud.

6 years ago | [YT] | 98

spiritdei

Sir Stephen Cleobury obituary
Director of music at King’s College, Cambridge, in charge of the choir famed for its live Christmas Eve service broadcast on the BBC
Barry Millington -the Guardian UK edition

Stephen Cleobury during rehearsals at King’s College, Cambridge, in 2016. Photograph: Kevin Leighton/King's College, Cambridge

Sir Stephen Cleobury, who has died of cancer aged 70, was director of music at King’s College, Cambridge, in charge of one of the world’s best known choirs, from 1982 until his retirement earlier this year. He continued the 500-year tradition of choral music at King’s, following on from his immediate predecessors AH Mann, Boris Ord, Sir David Willcocks and Sir Philip Ledger.

In an institution associated with gradual evolution rather than revolutionary upheaval, Cleobury’s major contribution to progress was his incorporation of contemporary music into the choir’s repertoire, especially his commissioning of a new carol each year for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast live on BBC radio on Christmas Eve. Leading composers who have written new work for the service include Thomas Adès, John Tavener, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Harrison Birtwistle.

Indeed, it was following the inclusion of Birtwistle’s The Gleam, calling for stamping feet and shouts from the choristers, in 2003 that Cleobury received a missive that read: “Whoever commissioned that carol should be locked in a darkened room and never let out.” The offender was not only unrepentant but proud that he was responsible for contemporary music being broadcast round the globe. He conducted his last Christmas Eve service in 2018, the 100th anniversary of the event, with a new carol by Judith Weir, master of the Queen’s music.


In his parallel career as chief conductor of the BBC Singers, from 1995 to 2007, Cleobury also had plentiful opportunities to perform music by such composers as James MacMillan, Giles Swayne, Ed Cowie and Francis Grier. At Cambridge he initiated two successful ventures: Easter at King’s and Concerts at King’s, the latter a year-round series attracting top performers such as Gerald Finley (a former King’s choral scholar), Bryn Terfel, Alison Balsom and Andreas Scholl, as well as leading ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music, Monteverdi Choir and Vienna Boys’ Choir.



While the commissioning of new music may have been the most obvious innovation at King’s, Cleobury made subtle adjustments also to the choir’s declamation. In the Willcocks era, the chanting of psalms had come to sound, to many ears, mannered and precious, particularly with regard to rhythms and vowels: phrases such as “is now and ever shell be” and “he maketh the clouds his cheriot” habitually wafted around the fan vaulting.

Under Cleobury, vowels evolved in accordance with developments in received pronunciation. At the same time he continued to emphasise the importance of consonants, aware that they did not enjoy an ideal prominence in the speech of the average modern chorister. He instituted singing lessons for the boys early on and the extra heft with which the choral sound was imbued allowed him to explore repertory beyond the traditional range, including Kodály, Janácek, Górecki, Pärt, Tavener and Rachmaninov. Since 2012 the choir has released recordings under its own label.


Cleobury retired in September this year. At one of his final evensongs, in June, some 140 choristers, including many former choral and organ scholars, combined to pay a moving tribute.

He was born in Bromley, Kent, the son of John, a physician at Bromley hospital, and Brenda (nee Randall), who had been a nurse there. His brother, Nicholas, also became a conductor and their sister, Julia, a professional musician and peripatetic teacher. Stephen and Nicholas auditioned as trebles for the choir of Worcester Cathedral, where the organist was Douglas Guest, an event that “changed the course of our lives”, Stephen later recalled.


While generally avoiding games (except for cricket, which he enjoyed) and suffering from an environment he experienced as anti-intellectual, he prospered in music, especially when, in 1963, Guest was succeeded by Christopher Robinson and his assistant Harry Bramma, both “fantastic teachers”.

There being no formal O- or A-level music classes offered by the school, harmony and counterpoint were digested after hours at Bramma’s house along with cake and tea.

Cleobury studied music and was an organ scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, under George Guest, and after graduating became organist and head of music at St Matthew’s, Northampton, and head of music at Northampton grammar school.

In 1974 he was appointed sub-organist of Westminster Abbey, before becoming the first Anglican master of music at Westminster Cathedral in 1979. In 1982 he took up the King’s post at Cambridge, where he was also conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society from 1983 to 2009.

Highlights of his tenure of CUMS included the 800th anniversary celebrations of Cambridge University in 2009 with the premiere of The Sorcerer’s Mirror by Peter Maxwell Davies, but also a Mahler Eighth Symphony in the Royal Albert Hall, in 1999, and the Britten War Requiem in Coventry cathedral, in 2000, on the 60th anniversary of its bombing. He became the society’s first conductor laureate in 2016.


He was also honorary president and a regular conductor of the East Anglia Chamber Orchestra, founded in 2010 to provide opportunities for non-professional musicians to play together. In addition to his conducting he maintained a rapport with the organ loft, giving recitals in such venues as Leeds and Birmingham town halls, the Performing Arts Centre in Hong Kong, as well as Houston, Dallas, Salt Lake City and Cape Town. Recordings on the instrument included albums of music by Bach, Howells, Elgar, Liszt, Reubke and Mendelssohn.

He firmly believed that services at King’s, while nominally Anglican, should be able to cater also for visitors who might be Buddhist, agnostic or atheist. To external appearances, he seemed reserved and introverted, but in the words of an anonymous 12-year-old chorister, “you have to be in partnership with him to see an entirely different world of emotions revealed”.

Cleobury was a man of extraordinary energy, both conscientious and considerate: at services he would stand in front of the organ screen to meet and greet, afterwards going back into the chapel to hear out his organ scholar’s voluntary. He was appointed CBE in 2009 and knighted this year for services to choral music.

He is survived by his wife, Emma (nee Disley), whom he married in 2004, and their two daughters, and by two daughters from his first marriage, to Penny (nee Holloway), which ended in divorce.

• Stephen John Cleobury, organist and choirmaster, born 31 December 1948; died 22 November 2019

• This article was amended on 25 November 2019. The tribute paid to Stephen Cleobury by choristers and former choral and organ scholars was at one of his last evensongs in June, not at his final evensong in July, as an earlier version said.

6 years ago | [YT] | 61