Latest Tracks

Inter Natos Mulieribus
La Ballade de Jesus Christ

Sospiri's latest CD available from Amazon
and The Gift of Music

Sospiri's next CD
'Desolata est' is released
by Naxos on 1 April 2013

Sospiri is a small, mixed-voice choir founded in 2006 by Christopher Watson and John Duggan after they met singing in Magdala, the inspirational ensemble run by David Skinner at Magdalen College, Oxford. Sospiri sing regularly in service and in concert – both in the UK and abroad, and have recorded five CDs, including two for The Gift of Music label. Under the tutelage of the directors, the choir have built up a large and diverse repertoire from Byrd to Britten. They specialise in performing plainsong and sing Latin Vespers in Merton College chapel several times a year. Uniquely, Sospiri is run by a composer and a professional singer, whose shared experiences provide a dynamic and diverse atmosphere in which to make music.

Some of the highlights of 2012 include the choir performing in the Merton College Passiontide Festival, a concert to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and a summer residency at Canterbury Cathedral. This year sees the release of a new recording on Naxos: 'Desolata Est' is a disc of Lamentation settings ­containing specially commissioned new work by Cecilia McDowall and John Duggan. Cecilia McDowall's piece 'The Lord is Good' was shortlisted for the BASCA awards in 2012.

A Multitude of Voices

New choral works to commemorate
the centenary of World War I

In 2012, Sospiri commissioned ten composers in the UK and the US to write ten new works for the centenary of the Great War. This project is well under way now, with several new pieces completed and more in progress. The choir is raising funds publicly and privately to fund the costs of commissioning and recording the new music. Recording will take place in the summer of 2013, to be released in 2014 to coincide with the centenary of the outbreak of war in August 1914.

You can read more about the project here and help us to realise our dream.