Until recently girls had little choice when it came to top-level choristerships. The news that both St John’s, Cambridge, and St Paul’s Cathedral are opening up their ranks is hopefully just the beginning of more widespread opportunities, a welcome supplement to the all-girl choirs increasingly making their mark – Oxford’s Frideswide Voices and the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir in Cambridge chief among them.

Established by Pembroke College music director Anna Lapwood in 2018, the Girls’ Choir (whose singers range from 11 to 18) released their first recording in conjunction with the mixed Chapel Choir in 2020 (‘All Things Are Quite Silent’ – 3/21). But the follow up – ‘Celestial Dawn’ – is all theirs. It’s an important milestone: a vote of industry confidence, but also a template for other choirs – a ready-made music-list for upper voices that goes beyond the usual composers and arrangements.

Contemporary music, and particularly commissions from living composers, are an important focus for the choir, generating a programme whose centre of gravity sits firmly this side of the millennium. There are Canticles by Ben Parry and Wayne Marshall and anthems by Roxanna Panufnik, Ben Ponniah and Kristina Arakelyan, alongside a smattering of more established works by Mendelssohn and Gounod but also John Ireland, Lennox Berkeley and both Boulanger sisters.

It’s an eclectic mix on paper, slightly less so in the ear. The sound worlds here are fairly unanimous: tonal, affirmative, the shadow of Victorian church composers hanging heavy, barring the occasional foray into post-Whitacre Americana. There’s also a focus on unison or minimally divided two-part works – understandable given a socially distanced, pandemic recording set up, but it would be nice to hear what this talented group can do when challenged further.

The choir’s sound is fresh and supple, the blend sweet and nicely balanced. We get a lovely baseline from the tutti melodies in Mendelssohn’s If with all your hearts, John Dankworth’s Light of the World and Arakelyan’s folk-inflected You know me, all phrased with care and musicality – directional without being mannered.

Marshall’s Canticles give the singers more to get their teeth into in their attractive blend of jazz and Anglican sacred styles. The singers ‘scatter the proud’ with a shimmy of vocal jazz-hands, and the Gloria eddies downwards with easy joy. It’s the same story in Parry’s settings: outgoing, graceful pieces written by a composer who understands both young voices and the singers that produce them.

There’s a lot of care and affection in this recording, from the programme notes to the choice of works and performances. Apart from being an attractive listen, hopefully it will also prove a valuable resource for other ensembles.