Commissions & Premieres

The Choir of New College Oxford is one of the world's foremost choral foundations. The music composed for it in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries thus provides a compelling historical tour of changing musical styles and liturgical practices. This album, which follows the choir's Sheppard recording (Gramophone Editor's Choice), surveys New College commissions and premieres from the 1920s to the 2020s, beginning with Sir William Harris's evergreen Faire is the heaven, composed while he was Organist of New College, and ending with a trio of recent commissions from contemporary English composers Caitlin Harrison, Deborah Pritchard and Toby Young. For Kenneth Leighton's heart-wrenching cantata Crucifixus pro nobis, written in 1961, the choir is joined by tenor Nick Pritchard, a former academical clerk at New College.