Voted the fifth-best choir in the world in Gramophone magazine’s ‘20 Greatest Choirs’, The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge comprises around thirty Choral Scholars and two Organ Scholars, all of whom are students at the University. The College’s choral tradition dates back to the all-male choir of the fourteenth century, when former Chapel Royal choristers studied in King’s Hall which later became part of Trinity College. Directors of Music have included Charles Villiers Stanford, Alan Gray, Raymond Leppard and Richard Marlow. Female voices were introduced in the 1980s by Richard Marlow, in a new departure for Cambridge choral music. Stephen Layton has been Director of Music since 2006.

During term the Choir’s main focus is the singing of the liturgy in the College Chapel, exploring a wide-ranging repertoire drawn from both Catholic and Protestant traditions. Outside term, the Choir’s programme of performances and recordings has included BBC broadcasts of Bach’s Mass in B minor and Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London, Haydn’s Nelson Mass with the City of London Sinfonia in Aldeburgh and Cambridge, Poulenc’s Gloria with Britten Sinfonia in Norwich Cathedral, and Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum with the Academy of Ancient Music in London and Cambridge.

Recent additions to the Choir’s extensive discography include Howells’ Collegium Regale, which won Australia’s Limelight Recording of the Year in 2016; Howells’ Requiem and other works, which won a Gramophone Award in 2012; and Beyond All Mortal Dreams, settings of contemporary American a cappella music, which was nominated for a US Grammy Award in the same year. Five of the Choir’s recordings have been nominated for Gramophone Awards, including two releases from 2015: Northern Lights, a recording of the choral music of the Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds, and Kenneth Leighton’s Crucifixus and other works.

The Choir’s most recent release was a recording of the music of Owain Park, former Organ Scholar at Trinity, about which Gramophone said ‘it is inconceivable that these pieces could be performed better; the choral sound is sumptuous’. It was also nominated for Choral Disc of the Year by BBC Music Magazine. Other albums include David Briggs’ Mass for Notre Dame, described by Gramophone as ‘one of the finest CDs of sacred choral and organ music you’ll ever hear’; Handel’s Chandos Anthems, named by Gramophone as one of the fifty greatest Handel recordings of all time; Bach’s Mass in B minor, hailed by The Sunday Times as ‘wonderfully fresh and athletic’; choral music by Charles Villiers Stanford; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio; Baltic Exchange, choral music from the Baltic region; Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and St Nicolas; Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum; new works by Polish composer Paweł Łukaszewski; and Yulefest!, a selection of sacred and secular Christmas music, all released on the Hyperion label.

Its ambitious programme of tours has taken the Choir to destinations in Europe, the USA, Canada, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Peru. Recent concerts in North America include sold-out performances at the National Conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the Choir has now undertaken two month-long nationwide tours of Australia as part of the Musica Viva International Concert Season, in 2010 and 2016, and will return there in 2021.

All services from Trinity College Chapel are webcast live and available to listen again on the Choir website: www.trinitycollegechoir.com. A searchable archive of over 6,000 musical tracks recorded live in services over the last few years is now also available on the website.