Morley College Choir was founded by Gustav Holst, during the period he was teaching music at Morley College. The choir was led for many years by Michael Tippett, who conducted the ensemble for the first-ever recording of Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium, and premiered a number of his works, including A Child of Our Time in 1944.
The choir is known for presenting concerts of great variety and style and has recently performed choral works by Vivaldi (Gloria RV 588 and Gloria RV 589), Vaughan Williams (Fantasia on Christmas Carols, Five Folk English Songs, Five Mystical Songs), Haydn (Insanae et vanae curae, Paukenmesse, Te Deum), Beethoven (Mass in C major), and Handel (Coronation Anthems). Morley College Choir has also worked in partnership with other orchestral and choral ensembles like the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Camerata of London and Chantage.
The choir has been conducted by Jeremy Haneman since 2005.
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“They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.”
—John Morley [1st Viscount Morley Of Blackburn] (1838–1923)
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
Through the clear windows of the morning; turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!”
—William Blake (1757–1827)