Choir & Organ - May 2023

Could the imagination displayed in the much anticipated instrument at Magdalen College, Oxford, generate a new wave of organ design in the UK? Paul Hale explores the college's new Eule organ in the May issue of Choir & Organ.

Plus, as the Taverner Consort reaches its 50th anniversary, founder-director Andrew Parrott looks back on how attitudes towards performing early music have developed over the decades; a trawl through music commissioned for and performed at coronation ceremonies since the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 offers some fascinating insights into beliefs and protocol; we meet Scotland’s foremost chamber choir for young people, NYCOS Chamber Choir, officially launched last year with funding from the Leverhulme Trust; Dutch organist and Baroque specialist Pieter van Dijk talks about two recent advisory projects which led to the creation of new ‘historic’ organs, one in the style of Contius, the other an Organo di Legno for use in Monteverdi vocal works; British composer Kenneth Leighton's love of animals is reflected in his major choral work Laudes Animantium, which can now be heard in its premiere recording with the choir Londinium, alongside other unknown repertoire; the score for John Sturt’s The Doubter’s Prayer for mixed choir and organ, commissioned by Choir & Organ in partnership with the Choir of King’s College London and supported by PRS for Music; and we hear from Katharine Richman, chair of The Bach Choir.