Robert "Bob" Chilcott (born 9 April 1955) is a British choral composer, conductor, and

singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

, based in Oxfordshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He was a member of the King's Singers from 1985 to 1997, singing

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

. He has been a composer since 1997.

Early life and early career

Chilcott was born in Plymouth. He sang in the

Choir of King's College, Cambridge The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English Anglican choir. It is considered one of today's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's Col ...

, both as a boy and as a university student, when he conducted the voluntary Choral Society, which included many singers from other colleges. He performed the ''Pie Jesu'' of Fauré's '' Requiem'' on the 1967 King's College recording.

Composer

Chilcott is well known for his compositions for children’s choirs, including ''Can You Hear Me?'', which he has conducted in the

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, Australia, Japan,

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, Latvia,

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, and the

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. He is associated with the New Orleans Children’s Chorus and the Crescent City Festival in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, for which he wrote ''A Little Jazz Mass'', ''Happy Land'', ''This Day'', ''Be Simple Little Children'', and for the 2009 festival, ''I Lift My Eyes''. Chilcott wrote ''This Day'', a setting of five poems, for a 2006 choral festival in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

; however, that festival was cancelled after Hurricane Katrina. The work eventually premiered on 25 June 2007 at St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, by 210 singers from around the United States. His cantata for

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

''The Making of the Drum'' has been performed by the

BBC Singers The BBC Singers are a British chamber choir, and the professional chamber choir of the BBC. One of the six BBC Performing Groups, the BBC Singers are based at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London. The only full-time professional British ...

, the

New Zealand Youth Choir The New Zealand Youth Choir is a mixed choir consisting of around 50 singers, auditioned nationally every 3 years from around New Zealand. The choir accepts members aged between 18 and 25 at the time of audition, and places will generally be offe ...

, the World Youth Choir (under his direction), the Chamber Choir of Europe, and the Taipei Chamber Singers. Chilcott wrote two larger sacred works, ''Canticles of Light'' and ''Jubilate''. The Addison singers performed ''Canticles of Light'' in London in 2004 and ''Jubilate'' in 2005, both in London and in Carnegie Hall. In 2008, Oxford University Press published his ''Aesop's Fables'' for

SATB SATB is an initialism that describes the scoring of compositions for choirs, and also choirs (or consorts) of instruments. The initials are for the voice types: S for soprano, A for alto, T for tenor and B for bass. Choral music Four-part harm ...

and piano ("The Hare and the Tortoise"; "The Mountain in Labour"; "The Fox and the Grapes"; "North Wind and the Sun"; "The Goose and the Swan"). Chilcott’s ''Requiem'' was premiered on 13 March 2010 at the Sheldonian in Oxford by the Oxford Bach Choir and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by

Nicholas Cleobury Nicholas Cleobury (born 23 June 1950) is an English conductor. Cleobury was organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford and held assistant organist posts at Chichester Cathedral and Christ Church, Oxford b ...

.A new Requiem by Bob Chilcott
Nicola Lisle,

The Oxford Times ''The Oxford Times'' is a weekly newspaper, published each Thursday in Oxford, England. Originally a broadsheet, it switched to the compact format in 2008. The paper is published from a large production facility at Osney Mead, west Oxford, a ...

4 March 2010 Chilcott conducted the premiere of his ''On Christmas Night'' on 12 December 2010 at the University Christian Church of Austin,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. The UK premiere of ''On Christmas Night'' was given on 28 November 2011 in Rugby School by the Arnold Singers conducted by Richard Dunster-Sigtermans. ''Christmas Night'' received its Scottish premiere on 14 December 2011 at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh performed by the Dollar Academy Combined School Choirs. His setting of the ''St John Passion'' is an hour-long work premiered by Wells Cathedral Choir in 2013. It follows the format established by Bach, with the story narrated in recitative by a tenor evangelist interspersed with interjections from the chorus (as the crowd) and from Pilate and Jesus, the whole being interleaved with chorales and meditations sung by the choir. Many of the chorales are new settings of popular hymns. In 2016, his piece "Ophelia, Caliban, and Miranda" premiered at picfest in Eugene, Oregon. Chilcott conducted the festival choir and the accompanying instrumentalists the

Yellowjackets A yellowjacket is a black-and-yellow vespid wasp. Yellowjacket(s) or Yellow Jacket(s) may also refer to: Places * Yellow Jacket, Colorado, an unincorporated town * Yellow Jacket, Florida, an unincorporated area in Dixie County, Florida Arts, e ...

. His ''Christmas Oratorio'' was commissioned by the Three Choirs Festival and first performed in Gloucester Cathedral on 1 August 2019.Reviewed by ''Seen & Heard International'', 3/8/2019
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Conductor and music administrator

Chilcott was the conductor of the chorus at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

for seven years, and is Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers. He is also President of Southend Boys' Choir, a choir from

Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

which regularly performs at London venues such as the Royal Albert Hall. Chilcott currently conducts the Birmingham University Singers, one of three auditioned choirs at the University of Birmingham.

References

External links

Bob Chilcott
website
Bob Chilcott

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

Bob Chilcott

RIAS Kammerchor The RIAS Kammerchor (RIAS Chamber Choir) is a German choir based in Berlin, Germany. It receives support from the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin ("Berlin Radio Orchestra and Choirs"), a limited-liability company owned by the public bro ...

Bob Chilcott
singers.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Chilcott, Bob 1955 births Living people 21st-century British conductors (music) 21st-century British male musicians British male conductors (music) English composers English choral conductors English tenors Choral composers Choral Scholars of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge Choristers of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge The King's Singers members People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood