After seventeen years as director of music, Stephen Layton is to leave Trinity College Cambridge to pursue his guest-conducting career Stephen Layton MBE has announced that he's to leave Trinity College Cambridge after seventeen years as fellow and director of music. He'll be devoting more time to his international guest-conducting career. Layton's final concerts with the choir will be on a tour to Germany in summer two thousand twenty-three, they'll carry out the Duruflé Requiem in six concerts, including at Frankfurt Cathedral. His guest-conducting in the coming weeks includes returning to Sydney Opera Ho to conduct the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducting the annual Bach St John Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and, after Easter, returning to The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, with Polyphony and Britten Sinfonia.

Below Layton's directorship, the Choir of Trinity College become celebrated for its exploration of new choral works and synonymous with paving the way for youthful professional singers. A history of Cambridge mixed choirs In two thousand twelve, the Choir earned a Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance for Beyond All Mortal Dreams, released on the Hyperion label. Trinity’s wide-ranging concert, touring and recording repertoire, including the Bach B Minor Mass and Bach Christmas Oratorio with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, culminated in the acclaimed two thousand twenty-three recording and film of the Duruflé Requiem in Paris’s St Eustache. In two thousand-twelfth, Layton pioneered the audio live-streaming form, and in two thousand-nineteenth he launched video livestreams, taking every note of Trinity Choir’s music to audiences around the world. Stephen Layton said: 'The time has arrive for me to move on Trinity College Cambridge and pursue my own guest-conducting career, something I've always hoped to do. Ten best choirs in the world 'It has been a joy and an exceptional privilege to work with The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge for so many years.

Beyond the services, discography, technological advances and touring successes, it's the students who form the major portion of my legacy: those members of this extraordinarily gifted grouping who changed the nature of a ‘college choir’ into a leading artistic professional beacon on the world stage. 'I warmly wish them wealthy success for the future and I know that they'll go strength to strength.' Layton’s guest-conducting career will look him continue to tour the world each season, working with leading choirs, orchestras, and composers. His interpretations have been heard Sydney Opera Ho to the Concertgebouw, Tallinn to São Paolo, and his recordings have won or been nominated for every major international recording award. The best cathedral and abbey choirs across the UK The conductor boasts five Grammy nominations in all, together with the Diapason d’Or de l’Année in France, the Echo Klassik award in Germany, the Spanish CD compact award and Australia’s Limelight Recording of the Year.

Stephen Layton has introduced a wide range of choral works to the UK and the rest of the world, thanks to his near associations with established composers including Arvo Pärt, the late John Tavener, and also emerging composers including Ēriks Ešenvalds, Uģis Prauliņš, Paweł Łukaszewski and Jaakko Mäntyjärvi. In two thousand-third he edited, choreographed and conducted the world premiere of Tavener’s seven-hour vigil Veil of the Temple, working closely with the composer to realise the work which Tavener described as 'the supreme achievement of my life.'