http://www.londonoriana.com/

London Oriana Choir

The London Oriana Choir has performed in all of London's major concert halls, including the Southbank Centre, the Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall, as well as the major church and cathedral buildings including St Martin-in-the-Fields, St James's Piccadilly and St Paul's and Southwark Cathedrals. Abroad, it has given concerts in such venues as the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris and the Pushkin Palace outside St Petersburg, at festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Strasbourg, Aachen and Cork, and at other important venues in Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Holland, Iceland, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Italy. In May 2008 the choir performed a successful tour to Riga, Latvia and will tour the Jura region of France in October 2008.

The choir's standards are high: choir members have access to the choir's two professional singing teachers and are given regular voice assessments. Its repertoire broad, ranging from the great choral and orchestral works by Verdi, Brahms, Mozart, Handel and Bach to contemporary commissions. A cappella music is sung in many languages and in all styles from early Renaissance to the present day, from secular to sacred, classical to jazz and including popular and folk music from around the world. The choir is often accompanied by professional orchestras and has recently performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Brandenburg Sinfonia, and Fine Arts Brass.

As well as its own concert series, the London Oriana Choir is often invited to sing for other organisations including BBC television. The choir has produced four commercial CD recordings, including a world première of Sir Henry Walford Davies's cantata Everyman with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, which received Editor's Choice awards in both Gramophone magazine and International Record Review. In April 2008 another world première recording was released, Armstrong Gibbs's choral symphony Odysseus with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

David Drummond was appointed musical director of the London Oriana Choir in 1996. He has conducted opera for English National Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Scottish Opera and for Kharkov Opera while orchestras conducted include the London Mozart Players, Kharkov Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra, with whom he recorded the BBC's ?Olympics 2000? music and in November 2007, a world première recording with London Oriana of Armstrong-Gibbs' Odysseus.

David has been Chorus Master for both Scottish Opera and ENO, has worked with choirs throughout Britain and, from 1991 - 2001, was Director of Music & Opera at University College, London where he conducted the world première of Cesar Franck's Hulda and three further British premières including Sallinen's Kullervo. He is also on the coaching staff at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music and has been an adjudicator for the BBC Radio 3 ?Choir of the Year? Competition. He has been a popular presenter of children's concerts both in this country with the LMP, and in Sweden, and has also staged several opera productions with mentally handicapped adults.

As Musical Director of the London Oriana Choir he has worked with the English Baroque Orchestra, Fine Arts Brass and Canzona. He was responsible for the choir's ?Editor's Choice? recording of Walford Davies ?Everyman? and some of his choral arrangements are featured on a DVD of a 2006 concert recorded in St. Paul's Cathedral, with the singer/ songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman.

Programme
Britten - Chorale after an Old French Carol
James MacMillan - Cantos Sagrados
Britten - Rejoice the Lamb
Tavener - Mother and Child
Elgar - The Music Makers

London Oriana Choir
David Drummond Conductor

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