About CUMS
CUMS is one of the oldest and most distinguished university music societies in the world. It exists to enrich the education of its members and audiences by enabling them to enjoy the highest degree of excellence in orchestral and choral performance.
The Society has played a pivotal role in British musical life for 165 years. It has helped to launch the careers of such luminaries as Sir Andrew Davis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Mark Elder, has given world premières of works by Britten, Lutoslwski, Rutter, Holloway, Peter Maxwell Davies and Saxton, and has exposed successive generations of Cambridge musicians to visiting conductors and soloists including Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Britten and Menuhin. The Society's many recordings have included Elgar's Coronation Ode with The Philharmonia Orchestra for EMI, Tallis Spem in alium for Decca, Hadley's The Hills with the LPO, Verdi's Four Sacred Pieces with King's College Choir for Argo, and Robert Saxton's Canticum Luminis on Opera Omnia. Since the 1870s, CUMS has enjoyed the leadership of several of Britain's greatest musicians, including Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir David Willcocks, Sir Philip Ledger, and - since 1983 - Stephen Cleobury.
Today's Society delivers a rich and often life-changing programme of education and excellence for over 400 performing members. Its three orchestras and chorus perform for thousands of audience members each year, and act as ambassadors for Cambridge through an ambitious international touring programme. CUMS provides opportunities for the University's finest student soloists and conductors through annual concerto and conducting competitions, and The Society actively encourages new music by running a composition competition and premièring at least one new work each year.
Recent seasons have included Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony under guest conductor Peter Stark, Handel's Solomon in King's College Chapel with Simon Standage as guest leader, a performance for the Cambridge Festival in honour of Professor Stephen Hawking, Elgar's The Apostles and The Music Makers with The Philharmonia Orchestra, Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie under guest conductor Baldur Brönnimann, Rachmaninov's The Bells and Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 with Charles Siem and Stephen Cleobury.
This season, CUMS I, Cambridge's flagship symphony orchestra, is working with a considerably expanded roster of visiting orchestral conductors. Peter Stark launches the season with a programme of Walton and Holst. CUMS alumnus Martin Andre, a regular conductor at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and WNO, returns to conduct a programme of music inspired by water starring "the best mezzo in Britain" (The Times, December 2006), Catherine Wyn-Rogers. Christopher Robinson conducts Beethoven's vast Missa Solemnis, the second in our series of annual concerts with a thrillingly vibrant young chorus which brings together around 200 Cambridge choral scholars.
The May Week concert will bring the season, and Stephen Cleobury's distinguished 27-year tenure as Conductor of CUMS, to a celebratory close. The world première of a major new work by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, commissioned by The Society in honour of Cambridge's 800th anniversary, will be followed by Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. With Schiller's Ode, a new chapter in The Society's history will open on a note of joy.