Only Band E listening only tickets available. Please call the Box Office on 020 7766 1100 for assistance with booking. 

Programme

Bach – Christians be Joyful from Christmas Oratorio
Vivaldi – ‘Winter’ from the Four Seasons
Bach – Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring
Handel – Movements including ‘Hallelujah’ Chorus from Messiah
Seasonal readings and poems including works by Shakespeare, Kipling and Dickens.

Choir of Christ’s College Cambridge
Thames Chamber Orchestra
Keith Marshall Conductor
David Rowland Director

Performers

Keith Marshall began his musical education as a chorister at Birmingham Cathedral.  He read music at Caius College Cambridge, where he was a Choral Exhibitioner.  Having gained MA Hons in music, Keith went on to study oboe at the Royal Academy of Music, winning the Recital Diploma – the Academy’s highest award.  He was a First Prize winner in the opening “Croft Original” competition and was subsequently awarded the Academy’s Shinn Fellowship.

Keith Marshall has pursued a highly successful and broadly based freelance career as an oboist, performing on a regular basis with Britain’s most prestigious symphony and chamber orchestras at many of the world’s most important venues and music festivals.  Playing for extended periods with both the English Chamber and Philharmonia Orchestras, he has performed at the Salzburg and Edinburgh Festivals, the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, the Musikverein and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.   Keith Marshall has often appeared as soloist with the Thames Chamber Orchestra, playing concertos in both the Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls, and at other venues throughout the United Kingdom.

In 1994 Keith Marshall was appointed Director of the Thames Chamber Orchestra.  He conducts a regular series of concerts at St Martin-in-the-Fields, at numerous festivals throughout the United Kingdom and at many London venues including St John’s Smith Square and the Royal Albert Hall. Keith has conducted the TCO in the presence of HRH Princess Alexandra on several occasions and these gala performances have included works such as Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, Mozart and Beethoven piano concertos and symphonies by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schubert.

He works on a regular basis with The Choir of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and repertoire includes most major works by Bach, Handel and Mozart.  Their performance of Handel’s Coronation Anthems was broadcast from St John’s Smith Square on Classic FM. In 2009 Keith Marshall was invited to conduct at State Opera Rousse, Bulgaria, and in the last year he has directed highly acclaimed performances of Don Giovanni and La Traviata. In January 2011 he had the honour of conducting a New Year concert in Salzburg with Austria’s Wallersee Philharmonie.

The Choir’s raison d’etre is, as it has always been, to sing services in the College Chapel. Choral Evensong is sung on Thursday and Sunday Evenings during Full Term, and Choral Eucharist services take place on a less frequent basis. More generally, the Choir makes an important contribution to the life of the College, singing at feasts, weddings, memorial services and other occasions.

Today, as one of Cambridge’s finest mixed-voice ensembles, the group also pursues an exciting range of activities outside College, performing concerts in Cambridge and around the UK, recording CDs, broadcasting, and undertaking a major international tour each Summer.

David Rowland was Organ Scholar at Corpus Christi College and during his third year he assisted the Organ Scholar at Kings by playing regularly at services. After graduating in 1978 he pursued research in Cambridge, while still playing the organ and in 1981 he won the prestigious St Alban’s International Organ Competition. In the following year he was a major prizewinner at the Dublin International Organ Competition. Subsequently David became a lecturer in the music department of Glasgow University and then Director of Music at Christ’s College Cambridge, where he has conducted the choir for the last twenty-two years. More recently, from 2002-4 he conducted the Welsh National Youth Choir.

In addition to conducting he records, broadcasts and performs regularly in London’s South Bank concert halls and in many other venues nationwide, on harpsichord, organ and early piano. David joined the staff of the Music Department of the Open University in 1989, where he is currently Professor of Music and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. He pursues research into the performance practice of the early piano, and in particular into the career of Muzio Clementi, on which subjects he has written four books and other scholarly material.