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Choir of the Earth Events invites Choir of the Earth members and events attendees to enjoy this concert, recorded at the end of our A Cappella Wonders Tour event in St John the Baptist Church in Wimbledon, England on Saturday 30 May 2026.
Watch live together at 18:30 UTC+1 (UK time) on Wednesday 3 June, or enjoy later in your own time.
THE PROGRAMME
If Ye Love Me
Thomas Tallis
Miserere
Gregorio Allegri
Let My Prayer Arise
Pavel Chesnokov, arr. Richard Gowers
Song for Athene
John Tavener
MLK
U2, arr. Bob Chilcott
The Blue Bird
Charles Villiers Stanford
The Choir
Your Choir for this performance are the wonderful participants in our Wimbledon Come and Sing A Cappella Wonders event. They rehearsed independently online using our fantastic choral resources, and came together in person on the morning of 30 May 2026 to sing together for the first time. They spent the day workshopping these pieces with conductor Ben England , before performing them in front of a live audience, joined by soprano soloist, Lucy Cox.
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Ben England is an internationally renowned conductor, educator, and innovator who has received worldwide recognition for his pioneering work in the field of digital music-making.
He is the Director of the Earth Choir Academy, a newly founded non-profit organisation dedicated to building and promoting the choral repertoire through excellent teaching and musical collaboration. Ben is the founder of Homechoir - a new way of learning, singing, and performing music safely and enjoyably, particularly during the time of social distancing.
In October 2020, Ben was awarded the British Empire Medal in the Birthday Honours of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II - as one of 400 “heroes” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Ben has been nominated for and received numerous awards, including recognition from the Royal Philharmonic Society in December 2020, the “Kantele of the Year” award from the Finnish Kantele Association Kanteleliitto, a nomination for the “Inspiration Award” at the 2022 Music and Drama Education Awards, and the University of Bristol Alumni Award for Community Engagement and Impact in 2022. In 2023, Eric Whitacre named Ben his “Teacher of the Week.”
He is also co-founder of Choir of the Earth, an online choir with thousands of members, which has become one of the largest and most successful choirs in the world. Its first project, Messiah at Home, was realised together with some of the world’s leading musicians such as Laurence Cummings, Carolyn Sampson, and Jennifer Johnston, and attracted international attention. Messiah at Home was featured on BBC Evening News, across all BBC radio stations, on NHK (Japan), CBS (USA), and many other outlets - and has since become part of the official Wikipedia article on Messiah.
The choir has recorded major works such as Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Mozart’s Requiem, and Allegri’s Miserere - in collaboration with the world-famous choir Tenebrae under the direction of Nigel Short.
In December 2020, Ben conducted the choir in the world premiere of Still, Still the Night by Patrick Hawes, and their performance of Hawes’ Quanta Qualia was broadcast on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4.
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British soprano Lucy Cox read Music at Oxford before winning a scholarship for postgraduate studies at the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland.
Lucy maintains a busy career as a concert soloist. She has performed in several performances directed by Sir John Rutter, including Rutter's Requiem with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at St Paul‘s Cathedral, and Mozart‘s Exsultate Jubilate and Rutter‘s Mass for the Children with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra in Bath Abbey. She has also appeared with Rutter and the Oxford Philharmonic as the Soprano I soloist in Mozart‘s C minor Mass in Oxford‘s Sheldonian Theatre.
A former Brighton Early Music Festival Young Artist and finalist in the 2020 John Kerr Award for English Song, Lucy has performed widely across the UK and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist at the Wigmore Hall, performing songs for unaccompanied soprano from Jonathan Dove’s song cycle Ariel and in Sebastiani‘s Matthew Passion with viol ensemble Fretwork, as well as at the Vienna Konzerthaus with baroque ensemble Fair Oriana.
Operatic roles have included the title roles in Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Handel’s Semele, Cyril Rootham’s Andromeda, Scarlatti's La Giuditta, and Cavalli's La Calisto, for companies including New Chamber Opera, Cantata Dramatica, and Brighton Early Music Festival.She appears this year as Belinda and First Witch in performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Gabrieli Consort and Players.
Solo performances in 2026 have so far included Bach's Magnificat and Mendelssohn's Lauda Sion at the Royal Festival Hall; Bach's Christmas Oratorio at Hereford Cathedral with the Hereford Cathedral Choir; and Bach's St John Passion at the Keble Early Music Festival; as well as The Spirit of Love, songs for soprano and string quartet by Ailsa Dixon, with the Villiers Quartet at St George's Bristol.
This livestream is offered to members and event attendees at no cost, though as a non-profit organisation we would of course welcome donations of any size to help us keep bringing music to our global community both in person and online:
❤️ With many thanks to Alena N. for the use of her recording. 🎶