Continuum was founded in 2018 by Harry Guthrie aiming to represent the very best traditions of choral singing. The choir prides itself in offering original and dynamic interpretations of firmly established choral repertoire alongside promoting new commissions and under-performed pieces. Covering repertoire from the Renaissance to the present, Continuum’s singers are drawn from some of the finest choral institutions in the UK with several having met at University whilst singing in the Choirs of Trinity and St John’s College in Cambridge. Many of the singers have performed with leading professional ensembles including Polyphony, Tenebrae, The Sixteen and The Monteverdi Choir. The choir typically comprises eighteen singers.
As the choir turns five years old, plans for our 2024 season include the choir returning to perform in Cambridge, Bedford, Amersham, Sherborne, Salisbury, Harpenden. We are delighted to be performing in Oxford, Perivale and Brecon for the first time and continuing to build upon our existing collection of recordings available via Spotify and Apple Music. Continuum will perform a headline concert at the Brecon Choir Festival in July 2024 of Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell as well as a new commission by Geraint Lewis on a text by Henry Vaughan: The Morning Watch. The piece is intended as a companion to Gustav Holst’s The Evening Watch. The choir will celebrate its Fifth Anniversary with a series of concerts titled ‘Peace on Earth’ that will include a new commission by Lucy Walker. From April 2024, the choir will begin a series of monthly releases on Spotify and Apple Music celebrating the breadth of music we perform from the Renaissance to the present as well as championing music we have commissioned.
The choir gave its first performance at St Gabriel’s, Pimlico with Music for the Epiphany season. Further performances before the Covid-19 pandemic included a concert of madrigals and jazz for late summer; a concert of music for Remembrance featuring Herbert Howells’ Requiem and the first Continuum commission by Harold Thalange, as well as a Lenten concert pairing Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday with a contemporary setting of The Reproaches by Stuart Beer. After a hiatus during the pandemic, the choir enjoyed a busy 2021-22 season taking in performances of Bach Cantatas, Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell and Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols in 2021. In 2022, the choir performed a concert of Iberian polyphony closing with Alonso Lobo’s arresting Lamentations as well as a concert celebrating twentieth-century French and German music by Francis Poulenc, Maurice Duruflé, Max Reger that culminated in Arnold Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden. The choir closed the year with a ‘Christmas with Continuum’ tour with performances in Bedford, Wells and Sherborne in December.
In March 2023, the choir gave the premiere performance of an extensive forty-five minute new commission: Stuart Beer’s Tenebrae Responsories for Good Friday alongside music commemorating the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes. The choir partnered with Multitude of Voyces in April 2023 for a concert in support of the charity in Salisbury and we look forward to further collaborations with them including working to support their Elizabeth Poston project: her music and her influence. Further projects in 2023 saw the choir perform new commissions by Alexander Hopkins and Helena Paish as part of a tour of ‘A Heritage of British Choral Music’ and ‘Christmas with Continuum’. In November 2023, the choir began releasing on Spotify and Apple Music with music by Eric Whitacre, James MacMillan, Francis Poulenc and Thomas Weelkes.
