The choir
The present church choir, one of the finest choirs of its type in the UK, is an excellent mixed-voice choir with over 30 members who are currently 'brought up to music' by Stephen Dagg, Director of Music.
The choir’s repertoire of sacred music ranges from the 16th to the 21st centuries, including a recently commissioned and premièred work by Roxanna Panufnik. The choir sings to a cathedral-standard every week at the Sung Eucharist on Sunday and Choral evensong every last Sunday in the month. It also sings at special services during the year and goes on tour each summer. Recent tours have been to Dordodgne/Aquitaine (2013), Bordeaux (2014) and Rome (2011,2012,2016).
In addition to its primary function of leading services at St Alfege Church the choir is often invited to sing at other venues and has been broadcast on television on the South Bank Show. In 2012 the choir was broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 and also whilst on tour to Rome, on Vatican radio.
Summer tour August 2018
The choir, directed by Stephen Dagg, was invited to sing two concerts and a sung Mass in the Lazio area of Italy (Rome). Choristers from Tallis’ Church here at St. Alfege performed in Palestrina’s Cathedral and in the beautiful setting of Trevignano on Lake Bracciano.
Monday 13 August 8pm Concert of Italian and English Renaissance Music in Duomo di Palestrina, Cattedrale di Sant'Agapito Martire
Wedneday 15 August 11.15am Ferragosto (Festival of the Virgin) Mass in Parrocchia S. Maria Assunta, Trevignano - Choral Eucharist.
Thursday 16 August 9pm Concert of European Church Music in Parrocchia S. Maria Assunta, Trevignano.
Stephen Dagg, Director of Music
Stephen Dagg is Director of Music at St Alfege Church where cathedral standard music can be heard every Sunday. The choir has broadcast on TV and radio and recorded on the Nimbus and Meridian labels. Stephen is an organist, harpsichordist and choral conductor as well as a leader in music education in the UK. In 1993 Stephen was appointed Director of the Centre for Young Musicians (CYM), since 2009 a Division of the Guildhall School, which offers talented pupils high quality instrumental/vocal training taught by London’s most distinguished instrumentalists, singers and teachers. In 2007, under his stewardship, the CYM became a national Centre for Advanced Training. In 2014 he was appointed Director of the Guildhall Young Artists programme developing the CYM model nationally.
From 1985 to 2017 Stephen had responsibility for the internationally renowned London Schools Symphony Orchestra (LSSO). With the LSSO, which is a significant ambassador for Britain’s youth abroad, Stephen has toured throughout Europe as well as in Japan and Argentina working with a “Who’s who” of internationally acclaimed artists from Sir Colin Davis and Sir Simon Rattle to Dudley Moore and Robbie Coltrane. Stephen has commissioned new work from many distinguished contemporary British composers including David Matthews, Derek Bourgeois, Diana Burrell, Sir John Tavener and, most recently, Roxanna Panufnik.
Sam Barber, Organist
Sam is the Assistant Organist of St. Alfege, where he accompanies the choir and liturgy week by week.
Alongside his work at St Alfege, Sam is the Musician in Residence and School Organist at Brentwood School. In Brentwood, his duties include conducting and accompanying the daily boy and girl chapel choir rehearsals before school, playing for the daily chapel services, accompanying the wide array of other choirs and co-curricular ensembles in concerts and tours as part of the new choral strategy initiative at the school, and teaching, both on a full classroom and a one-to-one coaching basis. He studies the organ with Richard Brasier, and is also accompanist with "Note-Orious", a light hearted community choir meeting in a function room at the East Dulwich Tavern in Dulwich.
Away from keyboard playing, Sam also plays the trombone; he is currently in his 4th year of undergraduate study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studies the trombone with Eric Crees, Simon Wills, John Kenny, and sackbut with Emily White, and is kindly supported by the Henry Wood Trust. Sam is a founding member of the function band ‘Ska House’, and regularly plays trombone and keys with them at various birthday parties, wedding receptions, and festivals around the UK. Sam maintains a busy freelance career, and his trombone and organ playing has been recorded on the Naxos and Signum Classics labels, and broadcast on BBC Radio 2 and 3, and recently on BBC ‘Songs of Praise’