The New Cambridge Singers: 40th Anniversary Season

The New Cambridge Singers are back in the city on Saturday 7 November, performing at the Church of Our Lady & the English Martyrs on Hills Road. It's the second of two concerts they're running that week, the first being on Saturday 31 October at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Linton, and both kick off their 40th anniversary season.

Musical director James Potter leads the choir through a programme of 17th-century church music, with Domenico Scarlatti's ten-part Stabat Mater at the centre. Around it, they'll be singing other composers of the period who wrote for churches and chapels, including Carissimi, Melani, and Alessandro Scarlatti. The Stabat Mater itself is a work for voices accompanied by organ and theorbo, and those two instruments will be there for the rest of the evening, too.

The choir describes the programme as tracing the rich, expressive style of the composers who wrote for churches and chapels in the 17th and 18th centuries — music they say brought the liturgical world to vivid life. The New Cambridge Singers are one of the city's leading chamber choirs, and these concerts are the start of their 40th anniversary season, so it's a bit of a milestone for them.

Both the Linton and Cambridge concerts start at 7.30pm. Tickets for the Cambridge date are £18, with a student price of £8 and under-18s free. If you're closer to Linton, that one is £16, also £8 for students.