Formed in 1988, by conductor Peter Broadbent, the choir first came to prominence when it won the Sainsbury’s Choir of the Year competition in 1990. Since then it has maintained its profile in the music world, winning an impressive list of national and international competitions and maintaining a regular concert and recording schedule.

 

JCS regularly appears at all the UK’s major music festivals, including Bath, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, City of London, Presteigne, Spitalfields, Three Choirs, Huddersfield Contemporary Music and the BBC Proms. Recent highlights include a performance of Fauré’s Requiem at Cadogan Hall, London with Sir Andrew Davis and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2007 Chelsea Festival, Haydn’s The Seasons in Bath and London with Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia and the choir’s fourth consecutive appearance at the Petworth Festival in Sussex. This season sees their return to the Chelsea Festival with a performance of Alec Roth and Vikram Seth’s new work The Traveller with the Britten Sinfonia, Mark Padmore and Philippe Honoré and they continue their relationship with Richard Hickox and the City of London Sinfonia with a performance of Handel’s Dixit Dominus.

 

Equally prominent in Europe, JCS has performed at festivals in France, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Russia. Recent appearances include Polyfollia in France - a world showcase for choral singing and the Gutersloh festival in Germany. In the USA, JCS has given concerts at Stanford University, in Los Angeles and San Diego, and appeared at the National Convention of the American Choral Directors’ Association, in Texas.

 

Recordings feature a regular collaboration with Richard Hickox and CLS for Chandos, for whom they have released several discs, including three in the complete Percy Grainger Series, Lennox Berkeley’s Ruth and a recording of Vaughan Williams’ Christmas choral music. On the ASV label are discs of music by Jonathan Harvey, Francis Poulenc and Samuel Barber, and for EMI Classics, Garland for Linda, which comprises works by nine British composers including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett nd Sir John Tavener. Other releases include A Plum Pudding with Dame Felicity Lott and Gabriel Woolf (White Line), Angels Sing! - choral music by Roxanna Panufnik (Warner Classics), choral music by Malcolm Williamson, (Naxos), and by Cecilia McDowall (Dutton Epoch) and of Christmas music by Roderick Elms with the RPO (Naxos). Their recording of rare choral works by Vaughan Williams will be released by Albion Records in autumn 2008.