Bob Chilcott has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music, as a chorister and choral scholar in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and as a member of the King’s Singers. He became a full-time composer and conductor in 1997, and has composed a large catalogue of choral music which is published by Oxford University Press. His most often performed pieces include Can you hear me?, A Little Jazz Mass, Requiem, and the St John Passion.

Bob has directed choirs in more than 30 countries worldwide and conducts many thousands of amateur singers in a continuing series of Singing Days. Since 2002 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers and since 2019 Principal Conductor of Birmingham University Singers.

His music has been widely recorded by leading British choirs and groups including The King’s Singers, King’s College, Cambridge, Wells Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, The Sixteen, Tenebrae, The BBC Singers, The Bach Choir, Commotio, and Ora. Circlesong, recorded by the Houston Chamber Choir and Treble Choir of Houston, was released by Signum in January 2022, and his second disc with NFM Wroclaw, Canticles of Light, in January 2023. November 2023 saw the release of Christmas Oratorio recorded by The Choir of Merton College, Oxford on Delphian and Mary, Mother by St Martin’s Voices on Resonus.

Mary, Mother

This sequence of six carols explores the role of Mary in the Christmas story, focussing on her human experience within a story of the divine. The writer Georgia Way places the sycamore tree as a central image: from reflecting instability in Mary’s emerging adulthood to symbolizing the regenerative power of the human spirit in the work’s closing movement. Chilcott’s music perfectly depicts the narrative, musically charting Mary’s emotional journey through poignant melodies, rich harmonies, and characterful instrumental textures.