Cambridge University Schola Cantorum

Our Members

Drawn mainly from the students of Cambridge University, but without a focus on any particular college, Schola is a genuinely University-facing ensemble. The choir includes a wide range of members, from undergraduates to late-stage PhD students, staff and recent graduates, as well as some with no direct affiliation to the University.

Graham Walker - Director

"Little short of ideal, perfect in intonation... lively and delicate" - Gramophone

"Brilliantly handled" - The Observer

"Compelling" - The Strad

Graham Walker is an award-winning cellist and conductor who combines an active career directing choirs and orchestras with solo and chamber cello playing around the world. As a cellist, Graham has performed across Europe and North and South America.

Graham's discography as a cellist and conductor reflects his wide musical interests. His first recording as a conductor, made when he was just 22, featured the music of Jean Mouton, a 16th-century Flemish composer, much of whose music was being recorded for the first time; his most recent album with his Latin-American group Classico Latino (“Salsa Classics”) was warmly received by critics, concert-goers and salsa nightclub DJs alike. His first two CDs with Karolos, of chamber music by Stephen Dodgson, were released in 2018 on the Naxos label to rave reviews in the critical press; their third disc, featuring Mozart’s E Flat Divertimento K563, was released in March 2025.

Graham’s work with Classico Latino has led him to discover the wealth of the Latin American musical repertoire, music which is almost entirely unknown outside the continent. With the group he has toured South America on several occasions, and in 2011 he was awarded a plaque live on Colombian national television in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to Colombian Andean music”.

Graham is Director of Music at Emmanuel College Cambridge and Director of Cambridge University Schola Cantorum.

Alexander Trigg - Assistant Director

Alex enjoys a diverse freelance career as an organist, director and educator. He is in high demand across the UK and Europe, with forthcoming recitals including St George’s Hanover Square and St Paul’s Cathedral in London, as well as venues in Amsterdam, Berlin and Cologne.

As Assistant Director of Cambridge Schola, Alex was instrumental in the foundation of Cambridge’s most exciting new choir. He has conducted a wide range of repertoire in Schola’s candlelit evening services, including a number of world premieres. He is also Founder and Director of St Andrew’s Music School, a charity based in south Cambridge which delivers music outreach to local schools and offers free instrumental tuition and performing opportunities to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Although he originally hails from Kent, Alex spent much of his childhood in Cambridge, as a chorister at King’s College. He returned to Cambridge in 2021 as Organ Scholar at St John’s College, following a year at St George’s Chapel Windsor Castle. Alex is a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and continues his professional development as an Advanced Postgraduate student at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, studying the organ with Daniel Moult, Nicholas Wearne and Nathan Laube.

Tim Watts combines careers as composer, pianist and teacher, and lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire. His output includes orchestral, choral and dramatic works, as well as much chamber music and song, often written for his own performing partnerships. Recent works include song cycles for Cerys Jones (White Shadow, five settings of poems by Don Paterson) and for Andrew Kennedy (Six Songs to Orpheus), a dramatic cantata on the subject of St Etheldreda for Ely Cathedral, a piano trio (for the Iridian Trio, in which he performs with Clara Biss and Roberto Sorrentino) and a sonatina for clarinet and piano. He has just completed a chamber opera, Bonnie & Clyde, in collaboration with the playwright, Adam Peck.

He is an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, and Teaching Associate in Music at St John’s College, Cambridge where he is also Sub-Director of Studies; he also teaches at the Royal College of Music.