3rd
December 2007 3rd
December 2007 All tickets for the carols by candlelight concert, held in association with the Musicians' Benevolent Fund have been sold.
To catch Vasari this Christmas, the choir is performing tomorrow, 4th December, at St James's Church, Picadilly, for a Carols by Candlelight concert in association with the MS Society. For more information visit the concerts page.
November
2007 
Tickets are now on sale for our end of year carols concert, held in association with the Musicians' Benevolent Fund (MBF) for the 4th year running, the concert is at the beautiful "Actor's Church", St Pauls, in the heart of Covent Garden. Featuring a festive mix of new and favourite Christmas carols, along with carols for everybody to join in with, this is an atmospheric evening not to be missed.
Tickets can ONLY be bought in advance from the MBF Box Office - the concert is guaranteed to sell out and no tickets will be sold on the door. Book early to avoid disappointment.
Tickets are £12 and money raised for the evening goes to supporting the work of the MBF. Click here for more information about the MBF's work.
To buy tickets, call the MBF on 020 7299 8357
November
2007 The newly released Christmas edition of ClassicFM Magazine features a double CD set of Christmas Music and includes one track from the choir's newly released Christmas CD Noel Nouvelet. The choir's performance of Jonathan Rathbone's arrangement of Silent Night features alongside recordings by several of the UKs other leading choirs including Tenebrae, Kings' Singers and The Sixteen.
October
2007
Reviews of the choir's CD of The Cloud of Unknowing continue to be published, including a 5-star review in ClassicFM Magazine claiming the work as "Unmissable", and nomination for Recording of the Month at MusicWeb International. Click here to see all the reviews gathered so far.
The choir's latest CD - our 20th release, is now available. Titled Noel Nouvelet, the disc is a unique fresh mix of new and favourite Christmas carols. Released on the Guild label, the CD features several musical gems that the choir has made its own, including Jonathan Rathbone's arrangement of Silent Night, Ward Swingle's Christmas Song, and more well known repertoire including Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum mysterium.
The CD will be available to buy from good record stores, and of course at the choir's own concerts. Pick several up for Christmas...
September
2007 The choir has to announce that the forthcoming concert scheduled for 10th November in Upminster has been postponed. More details to follow.
September
2007 
Following the release of our latest CD, The Cloud of Unknowing by Francis Pott, will be featured on BBC Radio 3's "The Choir" programme on Sunday 23rd September. Don't miss it!
To coincide with the release of our latest CD, The Cloud of Unknowing by Francis Pott, due on 3rd September, the tenor James Gilchrist will be featured on ClassicFM on Sunday 2nd September at 9pm. James will appear on "The Guest List", hosted by Anne-Marie Minhall, from 9pm. If you miss the programme live, it will be available as a Podcast download from the ClassicFM website.
September
2007 Tickets are now available for our forthcoming appearance at the Putney Jazz on the River Festival - the choir is performing Will Todd's Mass in Blue on Saturday 29th September. There are less than 100 tickets left, don't miss out on this exciting concert. More details in the concerts page.
August
2007 The latest edition of Choir & Organ magazine includes an extended feature on organist Jeremy Filsell, in which Jeremy mentions his work with Vasari, including our forthcoming CD release of our commission from Francis Pott "The Cloud of Unknowing".
July
2007 For the choir's traditional summer event, Vasari is travelling to Canterbury Cathedral for a 3-day residency whilst the Cathedral choir is away.
June
2007 
Our 2006 CD release of Will Todd's fantastic jazz mass, Mass in Blue, will be broadcast in its entirety on the Digital Jazz radio station TheJazz, on Saturday 9th June at 11pm, in a programme entitled "When classical meets jazz".
TheJazz is a Digital Radio Station and is available on DAB digital radio, online at theJazz.com and on Sky and Virgin Media.
Sky Channel 0113
Virgin Media Channel 961
www.thejazz.com (broadband
internet required for streaming audio)
June
2007 Vasari Singers is
seeking to add to its tenor and alto lines, and is inviting skilled singers to
audition to join the choir. 
Recently described as
“one of the world’s finest choirs” by MusicWeb International, under
our Music Director Jeremy Backhouse, Vasari Singers is an ambitious, highly
regarded, and very active amateur choir performing to professional standards.
Regular engagements include appearances at UK festivals, annual CD recordings,
performances in London’s key concert venues, as well as twice-yearly trips to
the UK’s Cathedrals to perform evensongs. Commissioning and premieres form a
large part of the choir’s repertoire: since 2000 the group has commissioned 20
new works.
2007 will see
performances of works including Howells’ Requiem, James MacMillan’s Mass,
the Durufé and Fauré Requiems, and Will Todd’s jazz-mass, Mass In
Blue, along with a weekend’s residence at Canterbury Cathedral in July. In
2008 the group plans to perform a major new commission from Jonathan Rathbone
titled Vasari Vespers.
Jeremy Backhouse:
“with our increasingly busy performance and
recording schedule, we need to add to our alto and tenor lines in order to
maintain the balance of our sound. We particularly would welcome singers with a
university, youth choir or cathedral choir background, and music students based
in London as these types of singers will thrive in our forthcoming
programming”.
Vasari Singers
currently rehearses once-weekly at Dulwich College, London. Auditions are held
regularly throughout the year and include a special test-piece commissioned for
the audition.
For more
information, please contact the choir secretary, Nicola Balzan, through the
questionnaire on this website.
May
2007 The April/May 2007 edition of Muso magazine includes a feature article on composing for choirs, with lots of information about Vasari's recent commissioning projects. Track down a copy!
April
2007 
Vasari Singers will line up again at St John's Smith Square, on Saturday 16th June to perform James MacMillan's spectacular Mass in a programme themed on Devotion.
This is another opportunity to hear the choir in concert at one of London's top concert venues - a recent review of the choir's latest CD release of Will Todd's Mass in Blue on Signum records hailed the group as "One of the Worlds finest choirs" (Musicweb International, November 2006).
Vasari's Music Director Jeremy Backhouse: "James MacMillan is one of the finest composers living today and his Mass, written in 2000, is certainly one of his most exhilarating works to date. It is a moving and demanding work for any choir perform, but with such powerful sense of devotion and intensity this is exactly the type of music that Vasari thrives on performing."
The whole programme presents a fascinating combination of accompanying works. Each half is opened with a Bach Motet. In addition, the programme juxtaposes four settings of the tragic words of When David Heard, including the Tudor composers Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Tomkins, and contemporary writers Jonathan Rathbone and Eric Whitacre. To complete the first half, the choir also sings Herbert Howells's haunting Requiem. Under Backhouse, Vasari is regarded as one of the world's leading interpreters of this intensely personal work devoted to the memory of Howells's young son. (Andrew Stewart of ClassicFM, "The Vasari Singers are astounding in Howells' haunting Requiem").
The concert starts at 7.30pm, tickets will be priced from £10-25 with concessions, available from the box office www.sjss.org.uk or by telephone 020 7222 1061. Tickets will be available on sale from 1st May. Click on the picture to download the flyer.
February
2007 
The choir has finished recording the latest major work by leading British composer Francis Pott. The 80-minute oratorio The Cloud of Unknowing, featuring the internationally acclaimed artists James Gilchrist (tenor) and Jeremy Filsell (organ), will be released later this year on the Signum label.
The recording took place in the chapel at Tonbridge School, Kent, making full use of the magnificent Marcussen organ - built in 1995 - it is a four-manual tracker-action instrument with 66 speaking stops, including two 32' stops and regarded as one of the finest organs in the UK.
Speaking about the piece, Vasari’s musical director Jeremy Backhouse said: “With The Cloud…, Francis has created something quite exceptional. The canvas is huge but the various strands are woven together with a virtuoso hand. The result is a work of rare insight, powerful emotional intensity and masterfully crafted music. For the choir it was a fitting monument to the scale of ambition we invested in our 25th Anniversary commissioning programme.
Our performance of The Cloud received such a powerful reception that it was clear we had to record the work as soon as possible. Working again with Francis (Pott), James (Gilchrist) and Jeremy (Filsell) has been an inspiration and we are thrilled to have recorded what I believe is one of the major works in contemporary music.”
February
2007 
The choir has commissioned photographer Sim Canetty-Clarke to take some new photos of the group - these images will be used throughout 2007!
January
2007 The choir will kick off 2007 with another set of dynamic and dramatic programming throughout the year.
Works to be performed will include James MacMillan's Mass at St John's Smith Square in June, new works by Will Todd at Gloucester Cathedral in April, and a "canticles and candifloss" at Fairwarp in March.
Two new CDs will also be released, including a World Premiere recording of our commission The Cloud of Unknowing, and our new collection of Christmas Music.
For more information please keep visiting the site!
Old News
Click here to go in to the past, old
news before the story above