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The is one of the UK’s leading collegiate choirs, with a world-wide reputation based on its extensive and , and on its highly acclaimed and imaginative . The choir usually consists of 24 singers - including undergraduates and postgraduates from Caius and other colleges - and two organists, and is directed by Precentor and Director of College Music, . 

Information about joining the choir as a singer or an organist is available

"Such poise and technical control from a college choir, with its constant turnover of undergraduate voices, is remarkable"

BBC Music Magazine

"The performances by the choir of ºÚÁÏÍø are highly accomplished"

American Record Guide

If you're interested in joining the choir or have a general enquiry about the work of the choir, please contact the Choir Administrator:

Mrs Claire Wheeler, ºÚÁÏÍø, Cambridge, CB2 1TA

Email: choir@cai.cam.ac.uk
Telephone: 01223 332411

The choir’s regular work consists of singing in the week by week during term, performing an impressive range of sacred music from all periods. Out of term the choir gives at home and abroad, appearing in prestigious concert series in the UK such as the Aldeburgh Festival and Spitalfields Festival in London, and performing in concert halls and churches across the world from America to China. The choir has sung with several professional orchestras including the Philharmonia Baroque of San Francisco (Handel), l’Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine (Bach, Haydn), the Aurora Orchestra (Schubert) and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Holst).

The choir has a notable reputation for commissioning and performing new music, by composers such as Judith Weir, James MacMillan, Richard Causton, Gabriel Jackson, Julian Anderson and Robin Holloway (a Fellow of the College). The choir’s have been internationally recognised for their quality and innovative approach to repertoire through excellent reviews and by featuring as Critics’ Choice in Gramophone magazine and Choral CD of the month in the BBC Music Magazine. Broadcasts of Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3 have been notably adventurous in content. In recent years the Choir has broadcast live from locations such as the Church of St John the Baptist in Cirencester and Buckfast Abbey in Devon.

The College’s musical tradition began at the end of the nineteenth century with a choir of men and boys, founded by the celebrated composer of Anglican church music Charles Wood, and later became an exclusively undergraduate male choir under Wood’s successor the composer Patrick Hadley. Hadley was succeeded by Peter Tranchell, under whose direction the choir became mixed in 1979, and Geoffrey Webber directed the choir from 1989 until 2019.

The College is grateful for the generous support for the choir given by its alumni. The current holders of named awards are: