Mousai are a choir directed by Daniel Cook (Master of the Choristers and Organist at Durham Cathedral) and assisted by Quintin Beer, one of the group’s founding members and an emerging choral director in his own right. The choir is named after the collective Greek Muse who within mythology inspires creation of literature and the arts. Having originally formed in 2010 as an octet, the group has now expanded and has given numerous performances throughout the UK. Recent performances have taken place in Winchester, Salisbury and St David’s Cathedrals, as well as St Brides', Fleet Street and the chapels of Trinity College, Cambridge and King's College, London. Mousai enjoys a regular platform as part of the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music.
All members of the choir have prestigious choral backgrounds, many receiving choristerships at premier UK cathedrals and continuing their choral studies at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Royal Holloway and Kings College London. Many more have passed through the elite conservatoires of the United Kingdom, including the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban Conservatoire.
Recent repertoire in performance has included Handel's Messiah, Parry's Songs of Farewell Vaughan Williams's Mass in G minor and Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday.
In January 2013 Mousai recorded their debut CD - The Welsh Connection, which features music from the 20th and 21st centuries by Welsh composers, poets or music with connections to Wales. The CD was recorded in St David’s Cathedral, and includes works by Arnold Bax, CHH Parry, William Mathias, and William Henry Harris. It has received national acclaim, receiving outstanding reviews in in Church Music Quarterly and Choir and Organ magazine.
Each summer, Mousai collaborates with the John Armitage Memorial Trust (JAM) as part of the City of London Festival and JAM’s own festival ‘JAM on the Marsh’. Previous concerts have featured gems of the Romantic and 20th Century choral repertoire such as Fauré’s Requiem and Rheinberger’s Cantus Missae. In July 2014, Mousai performed the newly commissioned ‘The Yonghy Bongy Bo’ by Giles Swayne, with Onyx Brass and some of the UK’s finest soloists.
Free recital (retiring collection)