Eltham College Choir

Over recent years the Choir of Eltham College, which numbers some seventy-five singers in its largest form, has toured to France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy and America, as well as singing the daily services at a number of English Cathedrals.

Early in 2009 the 40 strong Trebles Choir sung for Valery Gergiev and the Orchestra & Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre at London's Barbican in Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades and a new opera, The Brothers Karamazov by Alexander Smelkov. In summer 2008 they sang in the City of London Festival performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony at St Paul's Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra again conducted by Valery Gergiev.

Several major choral works are performed each year and recent performances have included Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, the Requiems of Fauré and Mozart, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Poulenc's Gloria.

In 2007, the College Choir released a CD on the Herald Recording Label with the brass players of the Orchestra of St. John's (OSJ) and organist Henry Fairs, featuring well known nineteenth and twentieth century choral works such as Parry's 'I Was Glad' and Stanford's 'Beati Quorum Via', as well as Karl Jenkins' 'Sing We Merrily Unto God' and John Rutter's Te Deum (click for excerpt).

In 2009 the Choir was involved in a live recording of Mahler's Symphony No 8, performed by the LSO. Click here for more information.

For smaller-scale choral works a chamber choir of thirty singers is used and, in addition to this, there are a number of close harmony groups and vocal consorts. A large proportion of the Chamber Choir have singing lessons at the College, with a number going on to gain places at leading London conservatoires such as the Royal Academy of Music, and choral scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge colleges. There are currently five Elthamians in the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.