Cantandum – the Singers and Friends of Westminster School Common Room – was established in June 2003 by a group of colleagues who enjoy high-quality music making.
The choir has a busy schedule of 6-8 concerts and services a year. In the spring of 2008 we were honoured to be invited to become the resident services choir at St John’s Smith Square and we also sing regularly at Westminster Abbey. Concerts are usually in the Westminster area, including The Great Hall and the Chapel of Westminster School, St John’s Smith Square, St Margaret’s Westminster, Ashburnham garden, St Stephen’s Rochester Row and the chapel in Church House.
The choir also occasionally sings out of London, building on its association with Bampton Classical Opera. Recent highlights include Handel’s Messiah in Bampton and a performance in Oxford of the rarely-heard oratorio Jephtha by Handels’ English contemporary Maurice Greene.
There are usually 16+ members, mostly from the wider Westminster School community including staff, OWs and parents.
Our repertory ranges from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries, and we perform both a capella and with orchestra as required.
Reviews
Cantandum is a chamber choir with numerous things in its favour, not least spirit of attack, excitingly good enunciation and subtle dynamic grading. But what one admires above all is the flair that [Gilly French] brings to the choir’s programming… competent preparation… gift for choosing exactly the right pacings… a constantly rewarding concert.
The Church Times
…imaginative repertoire – Lhéretier, Eccard, Vanhal, Telemann, Schütz, Buxtehude, Linley – is one of Cantandum’s marked strong points and the main item, Carissimi’s rarely-heard oratorio Jonah, could not have had a better case made for it, delivered not only with assurance, but intensity and pathos… the choir’s balances were ideally modulated by conductor Gilly French… lower-voice passages were assured, and the tuning throughout was usually well-nigh perfect.
The Church Times
In this appealing performance… the expressive impact and charm of Greene’s score was skilfully and engagingly communicated… conducted with unfussy precision by Gilly French.
Opera Today
