The Elgar Scholars describe themselves as Birmingham’s newest pre-professional chamber choir, and is conducted by co-musical directors Jim Bate and Laura Bailie. Bate & Bailie are both graduates of The University of Birmingham’s choral conducting masters programme, and the singers are students and alumni from the university, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and elsewhere. As you would expect, therefore, they produce a sophisticated sound, with precise tuning and clear diction a given. What is more interesting perhaps on their short debut recording is the variety of contemporary styles across just eight tracks.
One piece gives a nod towards their name, in John Cameron’s arrangement of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, as ‘Lux Aeterna’, but otherwise all the other pieces are by living composers. Starting with the Elgar, they take this at a good pace, avoiding any self-indulgence that can creep in, and they keep their powder dry until the big climax, when the ringing sopranos really burst out of the texture, before retreating to deliver a touchingly fragile ending. There are two works here by ex-King’s Singer and composer Bob Chilcott (b.1955). Firstly, there is Even Such is Time, a setting of a Walter Raleigh text, with a falling repeated pattern that here leads towards a rich, full homophonic sound from the choir, and a beautifully pure-toned soprano solo line from Alice Martin. The other Chilcott piece comes from his Song of Harvest. Gratitude is a prayerful hymn, with a warm blend from the singers here. Judith Weir (b.1954) is represented here by Drop Down, Ye Heavens, From Above, her setting of the Rorate Coeli text, often set to plainsong for Advent matins. Weir starts with a bare sound of just two lines, then adds lines to the texture, building to a thicker homophonic texture, with a particularly richly dense chord on the word Fear. There is an eery wedding anthem, And I Will Betroth You, from Michael Zev Gordon (b.1963), once again relatively homophonic in texture, but with closely clashing parts requiring precision of tuning and balance from the singers, and they sustain the long-held chords with impressive steadiness. The album’s title, Finding Your Home, comes from Millicent B James’ work, which was commissioned by the National Youth Choir. James was a member of their Young Composer Scheme in 2023, and this piece demonstrates a highly impressive command of a variety of choral techniques, moving from jazzy close harmony into a more playful rhythmically driven style, with improvisatory solo lines and finger-clicking creating a joyful and richly textured celebration, and the singers clearly had fun with this one.
But the two highlights here for me include Laura Mvula’s (b.1986) own choral arrangement of her song Sing To The Moon, originally composed with Steven James Brown who sadly passed away in 2024 for Mvula’s debut studio album in 2013. Mvula also studied composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and this choral arrangement was performed by the BBC Singers at the Last Night of the Proms in 2019. The choruses have simpler, thicker harmony, with a glorious solo rising above from soprano Evelyn Byford, whilst the verses allow for more interesting textures from individual lines and falling figures from the sopranos. And my other highlight is Jonathan Dove’s (b.1959) In Beauty May I Walk. It was written as a present for Anthony Whitworth-Jones on leaving Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where Whitworth-Jones had been General Director and had commissioned various works by Dove, including his opera Flight. It uses anonymous Navajo text, translated by Jerome K Rothenberg, and Dove expertly combines chanting with repeating figures and layering of parts to create a haunting piece. Here The Elgar Scholars basses rise up slowly beneath the busier upper parts, their slow scale underpinning the build to the work’s climax, before falling away to a quiet, delicate conclusion. It is in these more complex works, the Dove, Mvula and James pieces in particular, that The Elgar Scholars demonstrate their assured command, and conductors Bailie and Bate have clearly worked hard with them to create a highly accomplished choir that I look forward to hearing more from.
