The Pembroke College Chapel Choir provides the opportunity for regular Choral singing in the College Chapel, along with bi-annual tours and regular outreach work.
The Choir is made up of 25 singers; alongside undergraduate and graduate members of Pembroke can be found singers from other colleges, other universities and working professionals from Cambridge. The choir’s main responsibility is contributing to worship in the college’s chapel, the first built by Christopher Wren, consecrated in 1655. As well as Sunday Eucharist and Evensong, there are regular midweek services. Some of these give local schoolchildren the opportunity to experience high quality music-making in the Anglican choral tradition. There are also seasonal concerts performing larger-scale works with orchestra, recent highlights of which include Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Bach’s Magnificat. View the latest music list here.
Pembroke has been fortunate in the recent appointment of Anna Lapwood as Director of Music, who over the past two years has taken the choir’s outreach work further afield. An ongoing collaboration with the Muze Trust led the choir to undertake a tour to Zambia last summer. Closer to home, this year the choir hosted children from Pembroke House in Walworth, London for a day of music workshops and the chance to explore the city. Members of the choir also supported the recent Bach-a-thon, a nonstop performance of the complete organ works of J. S. Bach by an all-female team of organists. This was a fitting springboard for the launch of Pembroke’s Girls’ Choir, which this summer will welcome its first cohort of 11-18 year-old female singers.
Unusually amongst Oxbridge choirs, Pembroke has a number of exciting popular collaborations. They sang alongside Eric Idle, and have appeared on tour with Gareth Malone and The Swingles. These concerts provide a refreshing contrast to the choir’s more typical program of concerts in Cambridge, London, and frequent tours both across Europe and to cathedrals throughout the UK. These and more form the broad portfolio of activities that make up Music at Pembroke.
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Anna Lapwood is a trailblazing musician. As a broadcaster she is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3 and hosts a live, weekly classical music show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. This year she makes her TV presenting debut, hosting BBC Four’s coverage of BBC Young Musician 2020. Alongside her work as a conductor, Director of Music and public speaker, she performs an extensive number of organ recitals on some of the greatest instruments across Europe each season. Directed by Anna Lapwood, The Chapel Choir of Pembroke College has one of the most exciting and varied ranges of choral endeavours among Oxbridge choirs. Alongside their primary responsibility of contributing to worship in the College’s Chapel, they engage in regular artistic collaborations, media appearances and outreach work. The Pembroke College Girls’ Choir was founded in October 2018 and has quickly gained a reputation as one of the UK’s leading girls’ choirs. Made up of 18 girls aged 11–18, the Choir sings twice a week in the College Chapel, as well as regularly singing alongside the Chapel Choir. This album is the first commercial release for these choirs and Anna Lapwood as a conductor. It is a recording of some of the Choirs’ favourite music, some of which happens to have been written by women and some by men. It is the hope of all involved that the music on the record becomes more well-known and is performed more throughout the UK and worldwide. All downloads include booklets.