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The Rodolfus Choir was founded in 1983. Its members,
aged up to 25, are chosen from students of the Eton Choral Courses. Each
year these six summer courses attract some 350 young singers, and of these
a dozen or so of the best are invited to join the Rodolfus Choir. Many of
the singers are choral scholars, several are at music college, some are
still at school, and many hope to make a career in music. They come from
all over the country to sing for a few intensive days during the three
main holidays. In recent years the choir has concentrated on recordings
and performances within the UK, with the exception of a two-week tour of
the US in 2005. It made a great impression at the Gloucester Three Choirs
Festival in 1989, and since then has appeared at many other important
English Festivals.
The choir has made six CDs on the Herald label, two of
music by Francis Grier, one of choral music by Arnold Bax and Pierre
Villette, one of English and Scottish folk-song settings (commissioned by
Past Times), one of music by C. H. H. Parry, including his Songs of
Farewell and some partsongs, one of sacred music by the 18th-century
Austrian composer Johann Eberlin, one which features special choral
arrangements of favourite instrumental classics, "By Special
Arrangement", one of Christmas arrangements and carols and one of
German Romantic motets. In January 2000 the choir gave a performance of
the Bach B minor mass with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
broadcast on Classic FM, and in the summer of 2001 sang again in the Three
Choirs Festival in Gloucester. Regular singing at festivals has recently
included the Chiswick Festival and the International Organ and Choral
Festival in Dublin.
Clare Stevens wrote in March 2005, in ‘The Singer’:
The sound of the Rodolfus Choir is like that of no other UK chamber choir
that I can think of. It is fresh, because all the members are under 25, it
is wonderfully blended. It is fantastically in tune and very expressive,
with a wide range of dynamics, sensitively employed. What does that leave
out? Oh yes, balance - and that too is superb, and it has a quite
extraordinary flexibility.

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