Since their foundation in 1957, the Tiffin Choirs have worked extensively with the world’s greatest conductors, performed for the world’s finest musical institutions and recorded with the world’s leading musical ensembles. For this festive lunchtime concert, they’ll perform Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, a beloved and distinctive choral work from 1942 that sets an eclectic collection of medieval and early modern English poems.

The Tiffin Choirs are renowned for the breadth of their work, which spans symphonic, opera, choral and film music. This has recently included singing at the BBC Proms, with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Opera Holland Park and the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia and London and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. The choir regularly records at Abbey Road Studios and performs at the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Barbican.

Recent symphonic and opera highlights include a televised performance of Britten’s War Requiem from the BBC Proms with the LSO under Sir Antonio Pappano; several performances of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos 3 and 8 with the RPO and Vasily Petrenko, LSO under Michael Tilson Thomas and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel; John Adams’ On the transmigration of souls with the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski; Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at the Royal Opera; La bohème with English National Opera and Music With Changing Parts with the Philip Glass Ensemble.

The choir has recorded most of the orchestral repertoire that includes children’s choirs, with notable releases including Mahler’s Eighth Symphony under Klaus Tennstedt (EMI), which was nominated for a Grammy Award; an album with the Gabrieli Consort and Paul McCreesh; Handel’s Samson with the Dunedin Consort and John Butt; and an appearance on Madonna’s 2019 album, Madame X.

The choir’s 60th-anniversary concert in 2017 was broadcast on Classic FM, and in 2023 Tiffin became the first state school choir to broadcast Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3. The choir recorded for the soundtrack for The Hobbit and music for the BBC comedy drama Fleabag, appeared on set in the films Philomena and Batman and performed in Titanic Live! with James Horner.