Season 2025
Our 2025 season celebrates the 80th birthday of one of our favourite composers, Sir John Rutter. All year long, we’ll be embracing the full spectrum of Rutter’s music. His life-affirming Requiem is the centrepiece of our first concert, Songs of Parting. We then explore his mastery of text-setting in Songs of Beauty, a vibrant collection of poetry set to music. And no Rutter festivities would be complete without a Christmas concert, Songs of Joy, featuring beloved carols that capture the spirit of this most wonderful time!
Graduate Singers and Director of Music Karl Geiger are delighted to welcome you to a year of music by Sir John, as well as past composers who influenced him, and living composers he has inspired.
It’s a Rutterpalooza, and you’re invited!
Please read on for details about individual concerts, and view our flyer here.
Songs of Parting
Saturday 10 May · Elder Hall
Rutter’s Requiem is a work of solace, contemplation, and intimacy, balancing moments of tension and high drama with lucent beauty and grace. We perform this modern masterpiece alongside music that explores the sorrow and the sweetness of partings and farewells.
Songs of Beauty
Saturday 30 August · St Peter’s Cathedral
Rutter’s Three Shakespeare Songs bring the Bard’s verses to life with cheerful warmth. His predecessor Ralph Vaughan Williams’ own Shakespeare Songs provide contrast with their darker, velvety sonorities. Poetry settings come together in this marriage of lyricism and harmony.
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Songs of Joy
Saturday 13 December · St Peter’s Cathedral
Rutter’s rich legacy to the choral world is most evident in his vast output of Christmas music. His settings capture both the joy and the reverence of the holiday season. We invite you to join us for community carols, complete with organ and brass fanfares!