New Cambridge Singers returning to perform in city

The 40-strong New Cambridge Singers (NCS), founded in 1986, has established itself as one of the leading amateur choirs in Cambridge.

Their new season will see them take on exciting and challenging works from the choral repertoire which they will present over the coming year to audiences in Cambridge and the surrounding villages.

The choir’s musical director, James Potter’s formative musical training was as a boy treble in the Bath Abbey Choir.

He went on to read music at Oxford before developing a career singing in Oxford, London and as far afield as the US and China.

He moved to Cambridge in 2022, taking up his current position as precentor and MD at Magdalene College, directing the choir and teaching music to undergraduates.

James regards conducting a choir as thrilling, noting: “Without touching anything, you are influencing and shaping the sound of the choir.

“I’m a big fan of spontaneity and am determined that music should be fun.”

James is very excited about the season ahead because he says it will showcase the best of choral music in carefully-planned programmes which are “accessible to anyone who is willing to be transported by music”.

He also likes to talk to audiences during performances, sharing things to listen out for in each piece that are interesting and/or fun – or to shed light on them.

NCS is a well-established, auditioned choir of committed and experienced singers from Cambridge and the surrounding area.

They have a strong history not only with the classics of the repertoire but also new music, in support of which they have established a dedicated fund to sponsor new compositions.

They give most of their programmes twice, in Cambridge and in one of the many beautiful churches in the surrounding area.

In recent years, NCS has also performed in London, Copenhagen, Dresden, Tallinn and Helsinki.

Highlights for the coming season include, in their November concert, the Requiem by the acclaimed Canadian composer Eleanor Daley.

Visitors will also be able to enjoy the extraordinary 16-part choral arrangement of one of Mahler’s most exquisite and heartfelt works, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen – ‘I am lost to the world’.

This concert will also include works by Parry, William Harris, Walton and James MacMillan.

Following their concert for Christmas, which includes carols old and new for audience as well as choir, in March 2026, NCS will tackle Sir James MacMillan’s choral masterpiece, Seven last words from the Cross.

This intense and impassioned work is to be performed in the grand acoustic of The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs in Cambridge.

NCS will be joined on this occasion by the London Mozart Players.

The season will be rounded off in June 2026 with a programme of mystical songs by Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Gustav Holst, Judith Weir and Hubert H Parry.

Further concerts to look out for include ‘Visions of Paradise’ at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Steeple Morden, on Saturday, 8 November, at 7.30pm, and at St John the Evangelist, Hills Road, Cambridge, on 15 November at 7.30pm.

‘Following the Star – carols for choir and audience’ will take place on Saturday, 13 December, at St Mary and All Saints Church, Willingham, and at St Giles’ Church, Castle Street, Cambridge, on Wednesday, 18 December, at 8pm.

Details of all these and more upcoming events can be found at newcambridgesingers.org.uk.