There are many recordings of Bob's music and if you have searched online and cannot find a recording, that's probably because there isn't one! Where recordings exist for music published by Oxford University Press, sound files can usually be found on the relevant sheet music page of the OUP website, or on one of the sampler discs. Here, we list selected collections of recordings of Bob's music.

Circlesong
SHouston Chamber Choir and Treble Choir of Houston
Robert Simpson and Marianna Parnas-Simpson, conductors

Immediately before the Covid pandemic, in February 2020, we recorded Circlesong in Houston, TX with two marvellous choirs. Circlesong takes its texts from First Nations poetry from North America, where a recurring image was that of a circle, the shape of a notehead, of our world, and of the sun and the moon. The circle symbolises the day and the night, the pattern of the seasons, and the cyclical nature of our natural world. The disc includes the première recordings of the 2019 revision of Circlesong and also Walking the red road, composed especially for Houston Chamber Choir, and the three upper-voice pieces, Like a rainbow, All things pass, and Circles of motion.

Circlesong
Like a rainbow
All things pass
Circles of motion
Walking the red road

Released: 21 January 2022
Record Label: Signum SIGCD703


In Winter's Arms
Seasonal Music by Bob Chilcott
Choralis
Gretchen Kuhrmann conductor

This album represents the fruit of collaborations with the Washington, DC-based choir, Choralis, and conductor Gretchen Kuhrmann. Featuring festive works for choir and organ as well as choir and brass ensemble, at the centre of the programme is Wenceslas, inspired by the legend of the Bohemian King who braved the winter weather with his Page to save the life of a poor peasant, incorporating the melody of the famous carol into its eight movements. The disc includes the première recordings of My Perfect Stranger, composed for the BBC Singers, and the Gloria which was commissioned by Choralis as part of a composer in residence programme in 2015.

Wenceslas
Jesus, Springing
My Perfect Stranger
The Nine Gifts
Gloria

Released: 13 October 2017
Record Label: Signum SIGCD512


All Good Things
Commotio with Alexander Hawkins
Matthew Berry conductor
Bob Chilcott conductor

Performed by leading jazz soloists and the British chamber choir, Commotio, the distinguished promoters and performers of contemporary repertoire, a selection of villanelles, folk song arrangements, and witty settings are recorded alongside the Nidaros Jazz Mass, the composer's second setting of the Mass for jazz choir and trio.

Ophelia, Caliban, and Miranda
1. River Bride
2. Ariel taught me how to play
3. All good things come to an end

Marriage to My Lady Poverty
Scarborough Fair
The Real of Heart


Jazz Songs of Innocence

1. Piping down the valleys wild
2. The Lamb
3. The Little Boy Lost / The Little Boy Found
4. The Echoing Green
5. The Divine Image

Thou, my love, art fair
The House of the Rising Sun
Weather Report
Nidaros Jazz Mass

Released: UK September 2017, USA August 2017
Record Label: Naxos 8.573383


Sun, Moon, Sea & Stars
Tenebrae Consort
Nigel Short conductor

Tenebrae Consort presents a superb collection of original Chilcott works and arrangements of traditional songs, exploring the richest of styles, scorings, and moods. Enter this world of choral song through the ages in all its guises, and be enchanted by a collection of songs and styles reaching from North America to the Auvergne.

En la Macarenita 
Sun, Moon, Sea and Stars
Feller from Fortune
She's like the swallow
L'habitant de Saint Barbe
The Lazy Man
Shenandoah
The Gift to be Simple
Swimming over London
Go Little Boat
Fascinating Rhythm
Con amores, la mi madre
Là-bas, dans cette pleine
Viens par le pré
Montagnarde
Aka tombo
Furusato
Toull on mon kultani
Marriage to My Lady Poverty
Thou, my love, art fair
Touch her soft lips
Even such is time (movement four)

Released: 5 February 2016
Record Label: Bene Arte SIGCD903


The Angry Planet
BBC Singers
The Bach Choir
David Hill conductor

The Angry Planet was composed as a commission inspired by conductor David Hill for the BBC Proms in 2012. It combines the precision and skill of the BBC Singers and The Bach Choir with the exuberance of a host of young voices including The Young Singers, London Youth Choir, and Finchley Children's Music Group. Also on the CD are Five Days that the Changed the World, composed for the Worcester International Festival of Young Singers and highlighting five historical events in poems by Charles Bennett, and The Miracle of the Spring, commissioned by Magdalen College School, Oxford.

Five Days that Changed the World
1. Thursday 29 March 1455: The Invention of Printing
2. Friday 1 August 1834: The Abolition of Slavery
3. Monday 14 December 1903: The First Powered Flight
4. Friday 28 September 1928: The Discovery of Penicillin
5. Wednesday 12 April 1961: The First Man in Space

The Miracle of the Spring
1. Where Water Waits
2. The Source of the Spring
3. To Sing of Water
4. The Desert
5. The Voice of Water

The Angry Planet
Part 1
1. 6pm
2. As if
3. Yellow Eye
Part 2
1. Remember
2. 9pm
3. Green Rain
Part 3
1. Midnight
2. We Need
3. 3am
4. Sorry Too Late
Part 4
1. Peppermint Freckles
2. 6am (Lutra lutra)
3. Perhaps

Released: 20 June 2015
Record Label: Signum SIGCD422


Thou, my love, art fair
The King's Singers

Due to popular demand, this live recording was released as a digital single. Thou, my love, art fair was commissioned by the Minnesota Commissioning Club, a group of firm friends and supporters of The King's Singers. The recording is dedicated to Jerry and Cathie Fischer and to Bob to mark his 60th birthday. Early in 2018 it received its New York première in Carnegie Hall, performed by a massed choir of 230 singers in the presence of the King's Singers and conducted by the composer.

Thou, my love, art fair


Released: 2015
Record Label: Signum


St John Passion
Wells Cathedral Choir
Matthew Owens conductor

This setting of words from St John's Gospel is a dramatic yet optimistic retelling of the Passiontide story. The work combines 13th and 17th century English poetry with the King James Bible text settings. As with Bach's great Passion settings, the tenor soloist, who provides a melodious narrative throughout, takes the role of the Evangelist, and other solo roles are taken by a soprano and bass. It includes five well-known hymn texts set to new, original melodies.

PART I
1. Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
2. The Garden
3. It is a thing most wonderful
4. Peter's denial
5. Miserere, my maker
6. Drop, drop slow tears

PART II
1. The Judgement Hall (I)
2. Jesu, grant me this, I pray
3. Christ, my Beloved
4. The Judgement Hall (II)
5. Away vain world

PART III
1. Jesus is crucified
2. There is a green hill far away
3. The Crucifixion
4. Jesus, my leman
5. Jesus dies on the cross
6. When I survey the wondrous cross

Released: 9 March 2015
Record Label: Signum SIGCD412


The Rose in the Middle of Winter
Commotio
Matthew Berry conductor

This collection of music for the seasons of Advent and Christmas is performed by the renowned Oxford-based choir, Commotio, and reached the top of the Specialist Classical Chart following its release in 2013. The centrepiece of the disc is the cantata, On Christmas Night, which sits amidst some of Bob's most popular carols.

Song of the Crib
Les anges dans nos campagnes
The Advent Candle
The Rose in the Middle of Winter
The Heart-in-Waiting
The Shepherds Sing
The Shepherd's Carol

On Christmas Night

1.This is the truth (I)
2. Adam lay ybounden
3. A spotless Rose
4. The Cherry Tree Carol
5. O little town
6. Sweet was the song
7. Rejoice and be merry
8. This is the truth (II)

What Sweeter Music
Mid-Winter
The Bethlehem Star
Silent Night
The Night he was Born
Gifts for the Child of Winter
Before the Ice (O Magnum Mysterium)

Released: November 2013
Record Label: Naxos 8.573159 


Everyone Sang
Wellensian Consort
Christopher Finch conductor

This programme includes première recordings of favourites such as A Little Jazz Mass (mixed-voice version), songs and carols on a variety of texts, and the wit, wisdom and drama of Aesop's Fables in which Chilcott makes musical references to Brahms and Schubert.

The Isle is Full of Noises
The Lily and the Rose
Everyone Sang (Singing by Numbers)

You and Me

1. Brightness
2. The Good Side of Me

A Little Jazz Mass
The Bread of Life: Our Father
Mid-Winter
For Him All Stars Have Shone
The Rose in the Middle of Winter


I Share Creation
1. When the Sun Rises
2. The Earth
3. The Innermost House
4. Come to the Great World

Aesop's Fables
1. The Hare and the Tortoise
2. The Mountain in Labour
3. The Fox and the Grapes
4. The North Wind and the Sun
5. The Goose and the Swan

Released: May 2013
Record Label: Naxos 8.573158


The Seeds of Stars 2012
NFM Wroc?aw Philharmonic Choir
Agnieszka Franków-Elazny artistic director
Bob Chilcott conductor

This recording features a collection of shorter pieces, the first seven of which are for Advent and Christmas. It includes Furusato, five arrangements of traditional songs from Japan, sung here in Japanese.

The Shepherds Sing
Nova! Nova!
The Heart-in-Waiting
Pilgrim Jesus
Jesus, Springing
The Rose in the Middle of Winter
Lulaj?e, Jezuniu
The Dove and the Olive Leaf
Remember Me
Simple Pictures of Tomorrow
Happy the Man

Furusato
1. Sunayama (Sand Mountain)
2. Mura Matsuri (Village Festival)
3. Oborozukiyo (Blurred Moon)
4. Furusato (Homeland)
5. Momji (Maple Leaves)

The Bread of Life: Our Father
The Seeds of Stars

Released: 5 November 2012
Label: Signum SIGCD311


Requiem 2012
Wells Cathedral Choir
Matthew Owens conductor

The Requiem was co-commissioned by the Oxford Bach Choir and Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, and received UK and US premières in 2010. It exists in both an orchestral and a chamber version and the latter is recorded here with other sacred music which includes the motets from the Salisbury Vespers by the Choir of Wells Cathedral.

Requiem

Salisbury Motets
1. I sing of a mayden
2. When to the temple Mary went
3. Lovely tear of lovely eye
4. Hail, star of the sea most radiant

Downing Service (Evening Canticles)
Pilgrim Jesus
The Nine Gifts
Jesus, Springing

Released: April 2012
Record Label: Hyperion CDA67650


Making Waves 2008
The Sirens
Bob Chilcott conductor

A collection of music for upper voices by an ensemble of young professional women's voices brought together especially for the recording, conducted by the composer. The title piece, Making Waves, was composed in 2001 to honour the centenary of Marconi's first-transatlantic wireless signal, and was first performed simultaneously on the Atlantic coast in the UK, and in Newfoundland, Canada.

Circles of Motion
Like a Rainbow
All Things Pass
Making Waves
The Lily and the Rose
So Fair and Bright
Catch a Falling Star
Swansongs 1
Like a Singing Bird
Swansongs 2
All for Love of One

This Day

1. Bring me the sunset in a cup
2. Awake, my soul
3. This Day
4. The bright field
5. O Lord, support us all the day long

A Little Jazz Mass (upper voices) 

Release date: 28 October 2008
Record Label: Signum SIGCD142


Man I Sing 2007
BBC Singers
Bob Chilcott conductor

The BBC Singers with their Chief Guest Conductor present a selection of pieces by Chilcott both sacred and secular including the ever-popular The Making of the Drum and Advent Antiphons.


The Making of the Drum

1. The Skin
2. The Barrel of the Drum
3. The Two Curved Sticks of the Drummer
4. Gourds and Rattles
5. The Gong-Gong

My Prayer

Advent Antiphons

1. O Sapienta
2. O Adonaï
3. O Radix Jesse
4. O Clavis David
5. O Oriens
6. O Rex Gentium
7. O Emmanuel

The Shepherd's Carol
And Every Stone Shall Cry
Pange Lingua

The Modern Man I Sing
1. The Runner
2. The Last Invocation
3. One's-self I Sing

Beach
Simple Pictures of Tomorrow
Weather Report

Released: 1 June 2007
Record Label: Signum SIGCD100



We are delighted that two CDs of Bob Chilcott's recent music will be recorded in 2019 by NFM Wroclaw and Gloucester Cathedral Choir, both for release on Signum. Already available are All Good Things, a jazz-inspired disc by British chamber choir, Commotio, and In Winter's Arms, seasonal and Christmas music by the American choral foundation, Choralis.

All Good Things

Commotio, conducted by Matthew Berry and Bob Chilcott, with Alexander Hawkins (piano)

Nidaros Jazz Mass, Jazz Songs of Innocence, Ophelia Caliban and Miranda, Weather Report, Marriage to My Lady Poverty, Scarborough Fair, The House of the Rising Sun, The Real of Heart, Thou my love art fair

Naxos 8.573383

Bob Chilcott has always embraced a broad stylistic palette and his writing for voices combined with jazz instrumentation gives these worksa sense of vitality and energy.  Performed by leading jazz soloists and Commotio, the distinguished promoters of contemporary choral repertoire, this sequence of brilliant villanelles, folk song arrangements and witty settings reveals once again the breadth of Chilcott’s musical imagination.

Available now

In Winter’s Arms

Choralis, conducted by Gretchen Kuhrmann, with Todd Fickley (organ), The Classical Brass Quintet, Marian Rian Hays (harp), and James Shaffran (baritone)

Wenceslas, Gloria, My Perfect Stranger, Jesus Springing, The Nine Gifts

Signum SIGCD512

Bob Chilcott captures the celebratory spirit of the Christmas season with joyous music for choir with brass quintet and organ in the secular tale of the Bohemian king, and an energetic four-movement setting of the Gloria.  The Christmas story is re-told in two carols for choir and organ, and in a contemporary text by Kevin Crossley-Holland scored for choir and harp, each one exquisitely formed to demonstrate his innate ability to write music which is a joy to sing.

Available now!

Bob Chilcott’s music is published by Oxford University Press.

There is now an extensive body of recordings of Bob Chilcott’s music both on dedicated and mixed discs, and on a variety of labels.

Search the Signum site or visit the catalogue for information, sound clips, and reviews of the BBC Singers’ disc, Man I Sing, for The Sirens’ Making Waves, and for The Seeds of Stars by NFL Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir.  Also on Signum are the King’s Singers’ discs High Flight and Swimming over London, for which he wrote the title tracks.

The Requiem and other choral works disc is sung by the Choir of Wells Cathedral, conducted by Matthew Owens, and available on Hyperion.  And in 2013 Naxos released two dedicated recordings, Everyone Sang by The Wellensian Consort, and The Rose in the Middle of Winter, a disc of Christmas music performed by Commotio and conducted by Matthew Berry.

Other choirs who have recorded music by Bob Chilcott include King’s College Choir, Cambridge, The Cambridge Singers, The Sixteen, Westminster Abbey Choir, Grex Musicus from Helsinki, Vasari Singers, and The Chamber Choir of London.



Home

Biography
Music
Recordings
News
Itinerary
Contact