After Christmas album success, the Canterbury Cathedral Choir is releasing another album

Hot on the heels of their Christmas album success, the girls of Canterbury Cathedral Choir are releasing another – this time with the men of the choir.

Great Cathedral Anthems was launched at Canterbury Cathedral at the end of January and is being distributed by the Signum Classics record label (see also page xx).

The 13 tracks on the album celebrate 400 years of choral classics and it is fitting that the first, Honor, virtus et potestas, was written by Thomas Tallis, a ‘singing man’ at Canterbury Cathedral between1540 and 1542.

The 25 girls and the 12 men, known as lay clerks, are directed by the Cathedral’s assistant organist David Newsholme and accompanied by Cathedral organist Adrian Bawtree and Nicholas Wearne, assistant organist at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields Church.

David said: “This has been an exciting few months for the girls’ choir. At Christmas the girls experienced singing live on national television and enjoyed seeing the album and its tracks occupy top 10 positions in the music charts.

“This latest release has been described as a British “choral history” and the girls and men sing some of the greatest works from the Renaissance to the 20th century.”

The album, which also includes See, see the Word is incarnate by 17th-century English composer Orlando Gibbons, who is buried at the Cathedral, has already won critical acclaim.

The CD cover features a stunning photograph of the Cathedral’s newly restored Great South Window captured by Cathedral communications officer and photographer Lisa Emanuel.

• Great Cathedral Anthems is available from online music stores and the Cathedral’s own shop in Burgate, Canterbury and at: www.cathedral-enterprises.co.uk