Around Palestrina

As we welcome our new music director, Gerard Lim, and commemorate the 500th anniversary of Palestrina's birth, we celebrate the resonance of his music from his own time through to today with Around Palestrina on Friday 11 April 2025 at 7.30pm at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3TL.

Further information from the concert page.
BUY TICKETS: from EventBrite

Palestrina took the plainchant hymn Aeterna Christi Munera as the basis for his mass setting, whilst his motet Sicut Cervus is the inspiration for contemporary Italian composer Lorenzo Donati's 16-part motet, Sicut Cervus - Around Palestrina. James MacMillan's works often draw on Catholic liturgy and chant for their basic formal and melodic material, along with diverse other influences, with polyphony recalling Renaissance church composers.

Johannes Brahms both studied and edited the music of earlier composers including Palestrina. Our concert finds Brahms in secular mode with the earliest of his sets of secular part-songs, here for six-part chorus. And finally, our web of influences stretch to the Irish composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and his set of arrangements of traditional melodies from his homeland.

Welcoming our new music director, Gerard Lim

From January 2025, we are delighted that Gerard Lim will be taking over as our new music director. Gerard recently obtained an MMus in choral conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, under Patrick Russill, graduating with distinction, and a DipRAM in the final recital. Gerard was the Alec Robertson conducting scholar at Westminster Cathedral in his final year at the Academy. Prior to moving to the UK, Gerard was director of music for St. Joseph Church (Bukit Timah) for nine years, conducting for several masses for the Archdiocese of Singapore. He is co-founder and co-artistic director Chroma, which is a collective of singers who seek to present thematic choral programmes, based in Singapore. Read more about Gerard

London Concord Singers' Archive

London Concord Singers was founded by Malcolm Cottle in 1966 and so the choir's archive spans some 56 years. Thanks to one of our members, this archive has been digitised and is available to browse on our Archive page. Here you can see which works we have performed, and where, along with looking at early concert programmes and posters.

Come Sing with Us!

We invite you to come along to one of our rehearsals to try this friendly amateur chamber choir with a passion for tackling challenging music. We are a chamber choir of around 25 singers and sing a wide range of repertoire, from early music to contemporary. We rehearse in the Smithfield area on Monday evenings.

Just email info@londonconcordsingers.org.uk for more details and we look forward to welcoming you.