Samuel Jones is in his third year studying Music. He started playing the organ whilst at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford where he gained valuable experience accompanying the Chamber Choir at venues such as Keble College, Oxford and St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the Sixth Form, he was appointed Organ Scholar of the Chapel Royal, St. James’ Palace, London where he had the opportunity to play at a broadcast Ballroom Carol Service from Buckingham Palace and at the Royal Maundy service held at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.

After leaving school in 2019, Samuel spent a Gap Year as Organ Scholar at Portsmouth Cathedral, where he assisted in accompanying the cathedral choirs in their 8 weekly services and the Choral Scholars in concerts throughout the year. He also acted as choir librarian and worked in an administrative role at Portsmouth Grammar School.

During his time at Clare he has enjoyed playing for multiple BBC Radio 3 Broadcasts and making a recording with the choir last Summer. In addition to his duties with the chapel choir, he last year also acted as organist for St. John’s Voices.

Samuel enjoys performing as a soloist on both the organ and the piano, recently playing works such as Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. Aside from the keyboard, Samuel also plays the oboe in both a chamber and ensemble capacity. 

Holly is a third-year undergrad reading Maths at Clare. She sings soprano in the Choir and has singing lessons with Helen Groves. She also enjoys playing clarinet with the CCMS orchestra and giving recitals with her friends.

This will be Holly’s third year singing in the Choir. After spending her first year performing only to virtual audiences across a livestream, she’s been loving the opportunity to go on tour and perform in places like the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavik, and singing with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra in Denmark. Outside of singing, Holly has enjoyed being a part of the student newspaper Varsity, working with Clare’s JCR and getting slowly more involved with the student theatre scene in Cambridge!

Hi, I’m Hannah and I’m a third year undergrad at Clare studying music. I’ve been a soprano in Clare Choir since my first year, and I was a chorister at Guildford Cathedral for 9 years beforehand! I’ve loved singing in Clare Choir for the past two years as the atmosphere is so friendly and there are lots of opportunities to do things outside of the Choir, but we still make great music together and are all good friends. Some highlights have included singing in the beautiful concert hall in Aalborg, Denmark, the striking Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík and our annual Christmas concerts in St. John’s Smith Square. When I’m not with the Choir, I like to get involved in operas at Cambridge - I’ve been lucky enough to sing Susanna in Figaro and Adele in Die Fledermaus in my second year, as well as Mezzo-Soprano in the amazing two person contemporary opera ‘Denis and Katya’. I particularly enjoy singing contemporary music; one of the reasons I chose Clare Choir is because we sing a lot of modern music and music by underrepresented composers. This is something I hope to pursue when I graduate!

Derek is a final year (he hopes) PhD student at Clare. While his subject is not music, he has enjoyed singing and playing music all his life. He was in children’s choirs and school choirs before mostly focusing on developing his solo voice in his late teen years. His teachers all thought he should be a tenor because of where his voice cracks—but after several years attempting he realised that his voice actually resonates much better singing a bit lower. He sings bass with the choir with secret ambitions to being promoted to baritone. He will tell you that the best voice teacher he ever had was his Russian teacher, from whom he took lessons on a year abroad to Moscow. Due to a language barrier (read: Derek’s mediocre Russian), Derek learned by putting his hand on his teacher’s stomach and chest to feel how he breathed and how his voice resonated. Somehow those ended up being some of the most fruitful lessons of his life! Derek is also very active in college chapel life, and serves as a chapel warden.

Derek says:

“For me, the choir and the chapel are the backbone of my experience at Clare. Singing in the choir is a deeply meaningful experience, not only because of the high quality music that we make and the sense of togetherness we feel while we sing, but because we contribute liturgically to worship services. I love that our primary duties enrich a sacred space. This is also my first exposure to English choral music and liturgy. My musically-oriented friends all told me this would be rather special, and it has not disappointed one bit!"