Sir John Rutter is associated with choral music throughout the world. His recordings with the Cambridge Singers (the professional chamber choir he set up in 1981) have reached a wide global audience, many of them featuring his own music. His larger choral works, Gloria, Requiem, Magnificat, Mass of the Children, The Gift of Life, and Visions, are widely performed around the world, and many of his shorter pieces such as The Lord bless you and keep you, For the beauty of the earth, Look at the world, and All things bright and beautiful have become ‘standards’ in choir repertoire. He has composed or arranged many Christmas carols. He has enjoyed a long association with Clare College, Cambridge – first as student, then Director of Music, later as parent, and recording producer for their renowned choir.
Aedan Kerney MBE led the Music Department at Boundstone Community College in Lancing for forty-one years where the deserved reputation of the breadth and quality of the music was recognised locally, nationally and internationally. More than fifty past students are now keeping this tradition alive as music teachers while others have established themselves within the wider world of music. He has also led the music at St Michael and All Angels Church since 1974 and established The Boundstone Chorus in 1982. As a composer Aedan has written two community musicals, one about Lancing between the two world wars and the other about the plague at Eyam in Derbyshire, and his Song of the Seasons is settings of words reflecting the passing seasons linked with projected archive visual images of local horticulture. Many former Boundstone students will also recall singing his setting of the Lord’s Prayer and the Christmas carol In the bleak midwinter.
The celebration concert takes place on Saturday 14 June at 7.30 pm in St Michael and All Angels Church, Lancing. Tickets £10 (U16 £3) are available online from www.theboundstonechorus.co.uk, or telephone 01903 762793 (please leave a message) or email theboundstonechorus@gmail.com.
Ian Tout, Chorus Administrator said "This will be a great celebration of two people who have given the world of music such a great deal and impacted so many lives. Join us as we perform music by Rutter and Kerney, and a couple of other choir favourites".