St John’s Voices to be disbanded

St John’s Voices, the mixed-voice choir of St John’s College, Cambridge has been disbanded, with its music director Graham Walker made redundant. The change will come into effect at the end of this academic year.

St John’s Voices was formed in 2013 to compliment the work of the St John’s college choir, and performs weekly evensongs in the College Chapel, plus concerts, tours and recordings which have been well-received by the classical community.

In a social media post published at 9am on X (formerly Twitter), the choir said: ‘We were devastated to hear yesterday that the college has decided to disband SJV at the end of this academic year. We are so proud of what we have achieved and will miss singing together every Monday. Thank you for your support.’

St John’s Voices’ sister choir, the college’s main choir, began to welcome female singers in 2022, becoming the first Cambridge or Oxford college to do so, but it admits only female altos. Therefore, with the loss of St John’s Voices, soprano students of the college have lost the opportunity to sing in chapel choral services at St John’s.

The choir’s most recent performance took place last Thursday (14 March) with a programme of motets by Sergei Rachmaninov and Nikolai Golovanov. The concert repertoire is currently being recorded by St John's Voices.