Like to the Lark Swedish Chamber Choir & Simon Phipps

• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 - 1958):
• 1Rest04:12
• 3 Shakespeare Songs:
• 23 Shakespeare Songs: No. 1, Full Fathom Five03:29
• 33 Shakespeare Songs: No. 2, The Cloud-Capp'd Towers02:29
• 43 Shakespeare Songs: No. 3, Over Hill, Over Dale01:00
• The Lark Ascending (Arr. P. Drayton for Violin & Chamber Choir):
• 5The Lark Ascending (Arr. P. Drayton for Violin & Chamber Choir)15:29
• Judith Bingham (b. 1952):
• 6The Drowned Lovers (After Stanford)05:53
• Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852 - 1924):
• 7The Blue Bird, Op. 119 No. 303:44
• Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871 - 1927): 3 Choral Songs:
• 83 Choral Songs: No. 1, September02:19
• 93 Choral Songs: No. 2, I Seraillets have02:49
• 103 Choral Songs: No. 3, Havde jeg, o havde jeg en dattersøn, o ja!01:30
• Hugo Alfén (1872 - 1960):
• 11Uti vår hage02:34
• 12Limu, limu, lima01:26
• David Wikander (1884 - 1955):
• 13Kung Liljekonvalje03:50
• Gustav Mahler (1860 - 1911):
• 14Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (Arr. C. Gottwald for 16 Voices)06:24
• Ola Gjeilo (b. 1978):
• 15Serenity (O Magnum Mysterium) [Version for Violin & Mixed Chorus]06:37
• Total Runtime01:03:45

Info for Like to the Lark

The Swedish Chamber Choir makes its debut on Chandos with this fascinating programme of works for choir, choir and solo voice, and for choir and violin. The founder and conductor, Simon Phipps, leads the choir in unaccompanied works by Swedish and British composers. Maria Forsström joins them in one of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’, in a sixteen-part arrangement by Clytus Gottwald, and in Judith Bingham’s The Drowned Lovers, a stark companion piece to Stanford’s The Blue Bird. The violinist Jennifer Pike joins the Choir in Ola Gjeilo’s stunning Serenity (a setting of O magnum mysterium) and Paul Drayton’s outstanding 2018 arrangement of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, for violin and chamber choir.

Maria Forsström, mezzo-soprano
Jennifer Pike, violine
Swedish Chamber Choir
Simon Phipps, direction

The Swedish Chamber Choir (Svenska Kammarkören)
formerly known as Simon Phipps Vocal Ensemble, was founded in Gothenburg 1997. The choir has during the last years established itself as one of the leading mixed choirs in Europe with acclaimed recordings and various awards and prizes from international choir competitions. Most recent, the choir was the European Grand Prix-winner 2011, after being awarded the grand prix in "Concorso Polifónico Gudio d´Arezzo" in 2010. The Swedish Chamber Choir was in 2011 also the overall winner in the European Broadcasting Union's competition Let the Peoples Sing. The repertoire of the choir spans from the renaissance to contemporary choral music.

Simon Phipps
has conducted most of the professional orchestras in Sweden including the Swedish National Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony. His choir Simon Phipps Vokalensemble has established itself as one of Sweden's finest and has won prizes in many international competitions, most notably at the prestigious festival in Marktoberdorf, Germany, (May 2005) where they were awarded first prize and a special prize for best programme. The choir was elected Choir of the year 2006 in Sweden, and took the Grand Prix as well as four other first prizes at Florilège vocale de Tours in France in 2007. Since Autumn 2007 the choir has adopted the name of The Swedish Chamber Choir.

Simon was born in London and received his early musical training as a chorister at New College, Oxford. He took his B.A. as a Choral Scholar at King's College, Cambridge and went on to study singing at the Guildhall School in London. Conducting studies in Munich and Manchester followed and he made his professional debut at the Gothenburg Opera in 1985.

The next ten years were largely devoted to opera with engagements at Sadlers Wells and English National Opera in London, Krefeld in Germany, and Malmö in Sweden . In 1994 Simon Phipps moved to Sweden and has since then lived in Gothenburg. Although opera is still an important feature of his career (since 2003 he has been the Artistic Director of Läckö Opera Festival and in November 2005 he conducted the Scandinavian premiere of Britten's Paul Bunyan in Gothenburg) orchestral and choral work is now equally important.

Booklet for Like to the Lark