University of Strathclyde Music Society       

Cappella Nova Vocal Ensemble       

Strathclyde University Chamber Choir

Strathclyde University Chamber Choir was founded by Alan Tavener in 1980 and, on St Cecilia’s Day of that year, they gave their inaugural concert featuring Cecilian Odes by Handel and Purcell.  At the time of its formation, Strathclyde University Chamber Choir was one of very few chamber choirs in the West of Scotland, and it is therefore not surprising that it immediately attracted Members from outside the University who were, and still are, prepared to travel considerable distances to be able to rehearse and perform alongside the Student and Staff Members of the Choir, as well as former Students who have returned, or have never left!

The Chamber Choir’s repertoire includes anything from plainsong and renaissance a cappella music to baroque oratorios and twentieth century chamber choir ‘standards’ by such composers as Vaughan Williams, Britten, Finzi, Poulenc and Copland.

Since 2004, the Chamber Choir has been engaged in an ongoing project to give the first performances of a series of new communion motets composed by James MacMillan especially for the University Mass. To celebrate the 150th anniversary in 2006 of the birth of Russian composer Alexander Kastalsky, the Chamber Choir in collaboration with Svetlana Zveveva (the leading specialist on the composer) gave the Scottish premieres of a number of his short pieces, culminating in the world premiere performances in November 2006 in Glasgow and London of a version of his large-scale Requiem for Fallen Brothers – a work which the Choir will repeat in Moscow together with the Moscow Kastalsky Choir, conducted by Aleksei Rudnevsky, on Thursday 10 April.

Concerts:

8 April 2008
Italian Courtyard, Pushkin Museum, programme featuring a very special range of music, principally representing various Scottish traditions (corresponding to the eras of British art displayed in the Museum): Renaissance Church Music, Romantic Secular Music, Musical Settings of Robert Burns, music written especially for the Choir by James MacMillan, and music by the English composer John Tavener written after his conversion to the Orthodox Faith.
Location: Moscow, ulitsa Volkhonka, 12
Time: 1700
Telephone: (495) 203 7998, (495) 203 9578

9 April 2008
Alan Tavener master class.
Location: Moscow, ulitsa Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 13/6. Moskovskaya konservatoriya (Rakhmaninovsky zal)
Time: 1400
Telephone: (495) 629-94-01,(495) 629-04-13

10 April 2008
Combined with the Moscow Kastalsky Choir in the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, to give a performance of Alexander Kastalsky's "Requiem for Fallen Brothers" – a major work which the Moscow choir has recorded, and which the Strathclyde choir gave performances of in Glasgow and London in 2006 – plus a few Scottish items performed by the Strathclyde choir alone.
Location: Moscow, Malaya Gruzinskaya ulitsa, str. 27/13
Time: 1930
Telephone: (495) 252 4051

Алан Тавенер (Alan Tavener). Британский Совет     Alan Tavener (Director of Music, University of Strathclyde & Conductor, Strathclyde University Chamber Choir) moved to Scotland in 1980 to take up the post of Director of Music at the University of Strathclyde, having read music at Oxford University, where he was awarded the Heberden Organ Scholarship to Brasenose College. He studied organ with Nicholas Danby, gaining ARCM and ARCO diplomas, and conducting with Roderick Bryden and George Hurst.   

As Director of Music at the University of Strathclyde, he combines teaching and the promotion of a professional concerts series with the direction of a wide range of student choirs, orchestras and ensembles. With the various choirs and ensembles of the University of Strathclyde, he has toured many times in Europe.  Since 1980, he has also been Organist and Choirmaster of Jordanhill Parish Church in Glasgow where, in 1996, he formed the Jordanhill Community Choir.