"I was brought up by an extremely environmentally conscious mother. She is always careful not to throw things away unnecessarily, and is even still living with her avocado bathroom suite because there is nothing wrong with it. I try very hard to mend clothes rather than getting rid of them, and if I do need to throw things out, I will spend time working out the best places to donate them. I have a reusable coffee cup for my daily Costa and we deliberately bought a ramshackle home close to the city centre so that we can walk to most places." (Paula Downes, The Cantabrigians)
PROGRAMME
O virtus sapientiae,
Hildegard of Bingen, German, 1098 – 1179
O vos omnes
Andrew Downes, English, b.1950
Miserere mei, Deus
Sarah MacDonald, Canadian, b.1968
Sacred Mass for Solo Voice
Andrew Downes, English, b.1950
The Lord is my Shepherd
Andrew Downes, English, b.1950
Lift thine eyes
Felix Mendelssohn, German, 1809-1847
Sicut cervus
Johannes Ockeghem, 1425 - 1497
The Moor
Hilary Tann, Welsh, b. 1947
The Lord's Prayer
Andrew Downes, English, b.1950
The Sound of Silence
Simon & Garfunkel (released 1964)
The Cantabrigians is a group of professional female singers based in Cambridge, founded and directed by soprano Paula Downes. Many of the singers are former members of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and ex Cambridge Choral Scholars and have since performed with groups including The Sixteen, Philharmonia Voices, the BBC Daily Service Singers, I Fagiolini, the Tallis Scholars and The Hanover Band. Formed in 2016, they have performed in the Chapels of Christ’s, Selwyn, Churchill, Jesus and Trinity Colleges, and for the Christmas Big Switch On to huge Crowds. They have also performed twice for the Brandenburg Choral Festival of London and for Encore Concerts. They always programme contemporary composers including Andrew Downes, Jonathan Dove, David Bednall, Hilary Tann and Sarah Macdonald.
Dr Emily Shuckburgh is a climate scientist based at the British Antarctic Survey. There she leads the Open Oceans research group, which is focused on understanding the role of the polar oceans in the global climate system. Her personal research concerns investigating the dynamics of the atmosphere, oceans and climate using theoretical approaches, observational studies and numerical modelling. She holds a number of positions at the University of Cambridge. She is a fellow of Darwin College, a member of the Faculty of Mathematics, and an associate of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research. In addition she is a member of Faculty for many programmes of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, which is dedicated to working with leaders from business, government and civil society on the critical global challenges of the 21st century such as climate change, water scarcity and food security. She completed her undergraduate studies in mathematics at the University of Oxford and a PhD in applied mathematics at the University of Cambridge. She then conducted post-doctoral studies in atmosphere and ocean dynamics at Ecole Normal Superieure in Paris and at MIT. She is a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Chair of their Climate Science Communications Group and a former Chair of their Scientific Publications Committee. She acts as an advisor to the UK Government on behalf of the Natural Environment Research Council.
