English Chamber Choir

10/05/2026

Come and Sing with the English Chamber Choir from 1.00 - 5.30pm on Saturday 4th July, at Holy Sepulchre Church, "The National Musicians Church", Holborn Viaduct, London.

We will be conducted and encouraged by our Artistic Director and composer, Rufus Frowde, and accompanied by Richard Sisson (formerly of musical comedy duo Kit and The Widow).

Singers will explore new works which the choir has premiered and will soon be recording, alongside Tippett’s Spirituals from ‘A Child of Our Time’.

This will include a new work by Asha Parkinson, whose work has been praised for its colour, sophistication, and humanity.“Asha’s work is in tune with the world, which like it, can sometimes be joyful, tormented, poetic.” (Paris Move). We are also thrilled that Richard Sisson has offered to share insights of his compositional process during the afternoon.

Birdsongs (excerpt): Richard Sisson

This World is Not Conclusion: Asha Parkinson

Spirituals from 'A Child of Our Time': Michael Tippett

Love Divine: Rufus Frowde

Tickets are now available for this event, with discounts for students and under-25s.

Participants will also be able to buy a discounted ticket for our evening concert, where we will be performing all of the works studied during the workshop and more uplifting works on the theme of peace and flight.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/come-sing-positive-as-sound-tickets-1989009392636

10/04/2026

We are very much looking forward to this tomorrow . Tickets are available here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/handels-messiah-english-chamber-choir-vache-baroque-tickets-1978939459194

🎵 Introducing our Messiah tenor soloist 🎵

Ruari Bowen

Ruairi is an established interpreter of Baroque music in the UK and abroad, collaborating with some of the leading conductors in the field including Emmanuelle Haïm, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Stephen Layton, Vaclav Luks, Peter Whelan and Christophe Rousset. An experienced Evangelist of Bach's Passions, he has performed at Wigmore Hall, Bachfest Leipzig and Snape Maltings, as well as with numerous choral societies across the UK.

Recent engagements have included Damon Acis and Galatea for Opera Holland Park; Thespis – Mercure Platée for National Theatre, Prague; Evangelist / Arias St John Passion with Polyphony & Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, A Baroque Christmas with English Baroque Soloists and Lechmere Owen Wingrave at Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca. Other concert engagements have included B Minor Mass with Opole Philharmonic Orchestra and Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra; Christmas Oratorio with Britten Sinfonia; Magnificat and Messe in h-moll at Tilford Bach Festival, St John Passion with both the Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Handel’s Messiah at Händel Festspiele Halle; The Creation with London Mozart Players; and Vaughan Williams’ A Cotswold Romance with the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra. He made his debut with the Philharmonia singing Dvorak’s Requiem at the 2022 Three Choirs Festival, returning in 2023 to sing Vaughan Williams Sancta Civitas.

🐣 We’re joining forces with getting ready the English Chamber Choir to bring you a performance of Handel’s Messiah. This performance, on the first weekend after Easter, mirrors the Messiah’s first ever premiere just after Easter in 1742. We’re grateful to Ruari for stepping in, and we’d like to wish Sebastian Hill a speedy recovery 🐣

📅Saturday 11 April - tomorrow!
🕢7.30pm
📍St James Piccadilly
🎟️Tickets on sale here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/handels-messiah-english-chamber-choir-vache-baroque-tickets-1978939459194?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

English Chamber Choir

10/04/2026

The superb musicians of Vache Baroque perform ‘Messiah’ with us tomorrow (Saturday 11 April) at St James's Church, Piccadilly. Our Musical Director was so blown away by their playing at the 2025 Vache Baroque Festival that he felt moved to buy their baseball cap...

Tickets remain available for a performance of the highest quality, energy and imagination. We do hope you can join us to experience the emotive and dramatic power of the live performance of this monumental work.

https://www.sjp.org.uk/whats-on/handels-messiah-english-chamber-choir-vache-baroque/

08/04/2026

🎵 Meet our world-class Messiah soloists🎵

Rowan Pierce

Saltburn-by-the-sea soprano Rowan has been a Britten Pears young artist, Samling artist, a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a Harewood Artist at English National Opera. She was awarded the President’s Award by HRH Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, at the Royal College of Music in 2017. She won both the Song Prize and First Prize at the inaugural Grange Festival International Singing Competition in 2017, the first Schubert Society Singer Prize in 2014 and the Van Someren Godfery Prize at the RCM. 
Rowan made her BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2017 with the OAE and returned in 2019 for Handel’s Jephtha and 2023 for Mendelssohn’s Elijah, both with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She made her Wigmore Hall debut in 2017 with the London Handel Players and has subsequently appeared there with many other chamber ensembles in both early and late repertoire.

We are very excited to be working with Rowan again, after she performed in our 2021 production of Acis and Galatea. 

🐣Don’t miss out on our performance of the Messiah with the acclaimed English Chamber Choir, coming up on the first Saturday after Easter.

📅Saturday 11 April
🕢7.30pm
📍St James Piccadilly
🎟️Tickets on sale now in our bio

08/04/2026

🎵 Meet our second Messiah soloist 🎵

Kate Symonds-Joy

Kate graduated with a First Class music degree from Cambridge University and a DipRAM from the Royal Academy Opera Course. Her concert highlights include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Sydney Opera House, Rutter’s Feel the Spirit at the Barbican, Mahler’s Symphony no.2 at Cadogan Hall, Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the RPO and Christopher Robinson, Handel’s Messiah at Birmingham Symphony Hall, Mozart’s Requiem with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall.

Kate cycled to the most northerly inhabited part of the UK to sing Judith Weir’s King Harald’s Saga in the Shetland Islands’ Muckleflugga lighthouse and joined the Prison Choir Project to sing the role of Carmen with a chorus of inmates in Dartmoor and Wandsworth Prisons. Kate sings regularly as a core member of Solomon’s Knot, a Baroque music collective who are a Wigmore Hall Artist in Residence and have appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival, Leipzig Bachfest, and BBC Proms.

🐣We’re getting ready for our performance of the Messiah, joining forces with the English Chamber Choir. Get your tickets before they all go!

📅Saturday 11 April
🕢7.30pm
📍St James Piccadilly
🎟️ Link in bio

05/04/2026

Handel's 'Messiah' was originally an Easter offering, bursting onto the stage of Musick Hall in Dublin on April 13, 1742.

Tickets remain available for ECC's performance at St James's Church, Piccadilly with Vache Baroque on Saturday 11 April (7.30pm). The thrill of a live performance of this monumental is not to be missed.

https://www.sjp.org.uk/whats-on/handels-messiah-english-chamber-choir-vache-baroque/

(Thanks to The Cake Hole - Hitchin for the classy meet prop...)

29/03/2026

English Chamber Choir, Vache Baroque Band & exceptional soloists perform Handel's Messiah in the Baroque splendour of St James's Church, Piccadilly

Rowan Pierce (soprano)
Kate Symonds-Joy (mezzo soprano)
Sebastian Hill (tenor)
John Holland-Avery (baritone)

Rufus Frowde (conductor)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/handels-messiah-english-chamber-choir-vache-baroque-tickets-1978939459194

28/03/2026

Palm Sunday 29 March (3pm) at St Mary Magdalene, Richmond Team Ministry. Tickets still available and will also be available on the door. Glorious music to mark the beginning of Holy Week. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/english-chamber-choir-the-crucifixion-stainer-palm-sunday-2026-tickets-1982542287350

"...the work excites the ears almost as much as Tallis's original. Indeed, in one area 'Spem in alium' is surpassed, for the Latin text that MacMillan sets, an Easter 'sprinkling song' topped off with radiant hallelujahs, suits the music's engulfing waves much more than Tallis's prayerful words." (The Times)

ECC performs MacMillan's 40-part motet 'Vidi Aquam' this Palm Sunday 29 March St Mary Magdalene, Richmond Team Ministry alongside the choir's annual performance of Stainer's 'The Crucifixion'. Tickets still available from Eventbrite and on the door.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/english-chamber-choir-the-crucifixion-stainer-palm-sunday-2026-tickets-1982542287350

26/03/2026

"...the work excites the ears almost as much as Tallis's original. Indeed, in one area 'Spem in alium' is surpassed, for the Latin text that MacMillan sets, an Easter 'sprinkling song' topped off with radiant hallelujahs, suits the music's engulfing waves much more than Tallis's prayerful words." (The Times)

ECC performs MacMillan's 40-part motet 'Vidi Aquam' this Palm Sunday 29 March St Mary Magdalene, Richmond Team Ministry alongside the choir's annual performance of Stainer's 'The Crucifixion'. Tickets still available from Eventbrite and on the door.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/english-chamber-choir-the-crucifixion-stainer-palm-sunday-2026-tickets-1982542287350

06/02/2026

We are delighted to read that our Artistic Director, Rufus Frowde, has been honoured with an Associateship of the Royal Academy of Music.

The Academy today announces the alumni who will be conferred with Associateship of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) at a special ceremony in April. Alongside them, professionals who didn’t study at the Academy will be awarded Honorary Associateship of the Royal Academy of Music (Hon ARAM).