Cantate Youth Choir was founded locally in 1994 by the internationally acclaimed music director Michael Kibblewhite with both a musical and a social vision.
Michael believed that given the right training and discipline all young people could achieve a very high standard of musical performance.
Cantate has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, 10 Downing Street, St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, as well as many local and regional venues. It has appeared on the BBC on Songs of Praise and the Schools Prom, recorded under conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis and John Rutter, and gained many national and international awards.
Almost uniquely for a choir of this quality Cantate is open access, there are no auditions for our training and youth choirs, which take children up to the age of 15. At 15 the best and most enthusiastic of our singers graduate to the senior choir.
Singing in a choir helps to raise children’s feelings of self-worth and they learn to trust themselves and other people. This is important for any child, but it is particularly important for children from more deprived backgrounds, exactly the children that can be excluded from choirs that require auditions.
Since 1994 more than a thousand children have sung with Cantate and today we have almost 200 children under our wing