Led by our Composer in Residence, Tim Watts, Cambridge Schola is taking a leading role in developing new repertoire for choirs. During our first year alone, we performed ten world premieres and developed soon-to-be-announced plans for an imprint at one of the world's most prestigious publishing houses.
Cambridge Schola's yearly Carol Competition is open to all staff and students at either Cambridge or Anglia Ruskin Universities.
The winning composition is performed at our Carol services at Great St Mary’s and London, and the winner will receive a cash prize of £250.
The competition for 2026 will be announced in due course.
Alongside compositions by Tim Watts and other professional comissions, Schola is delighted to be working with students both in and beyond the choir.
One particularly exciting initiative sees the choir working with the Faculty of Music at Cambridge to run workshops for postgraduate composition students. In this way, non-choir members can get hands-on experience of how their music works in with a real-life choir, while our choir members experience unusual textures, ideas and compositional techniques which they might not come across in their day-to-day liturgical or concert singing.
Almost all College choirs in Cambridge offer singing lessons to their members: Schola is, so far as we know, the only such choir to offer composition lessons as well. Any choir member interested in writing music can have lessons with our Composer in Residence: resulting pieces can be workshopped with the choir, and, where possible, performed. Choir members can see their music taking shape and experience the joy of hearing their friends and colleagues bringing their ideas to life.