CCSD Summer Chorus 2025: Mosaic Mass (Singer Registration)

The Choral Consortium of San Diego Summer Chorus is back, this time with a unique experience for both singers and audiences!

This year's Summer Chorus will be a "Mosaic Mass," featuring a once-in-a-lifetime creative spin on the traditional sung mass framework but blending music from different composers and styles to create one festival mass setting in the British Choral Tradition. Led by British choral composer, conductor, and Cathedral chorister Benjamin Thiele-Long, the Summer Chorus program is open to singers of all abilities, learning a treasury of choral music in a fun and inclusive environment while also sharing a tale or two of his own Cathedral music experience! The program will culminate in a spectacular concert at First United Methodist Church, accompanied by San Diego County's largest pipe organ in a performance that is certain to raise the roof!

Full rehearsal schedule is below - with rehearsals taking place in June on Tuesdays and some Saturdays at Kensington Community Church. The final concert will be held at 6pm on 21st June at First United Methodist Church. Details for concert tickets will be announced in the spring.

Participation is open to singers of all abilities. All we ask is attendance at a minimum of three rehearsals. Attendance at the afternoon rehearsal on the 21st at FUMC is required for all singers.

General registration is $75, but we will be running an "early bird" discount at a rate of $60 for those signing up before 1st March (TBC). Students can register at a reduced rate of $30. Music will be provided digitally for all participants; printing can be arranged on request.

Music will include:

• Kyrie from the "Messe Solennelle," Louis Vierne
• Let All the World in Every Corner Sing, Ralph Vaughn Williams
• Media VIta, Kerensa Briggs
• The Lord Is My Shepherd, Howard Goodall (made famous from TV Show "The Vicar of Dibley")
• Et In Spiritum Sanctum from the "Mass for Four Voices", William Byrd
• Benedictus from "A Mass For Peace", Karl Jenkins
• Lux Aeterna "Nimrod", Edward Elgar
• Jubilate Deo, William Walton
  

About the Conductor

Benjamin is a composer and choral director with over 20 years of experience directing choirs and choral groups of all abilities in the UK and the United States.

Formerly a child chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, a Choral Scholar at Royal Holloway, and a Lay Clerk of Guildford Cathedral at the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace, Benjamin has conducted professional and amateur choirs at Bury St Edmunds, St Alban's and Exeter Cathedrals, St George's Chapel Windsor Castle, and The Vatican.

His compositions have been performed across the world, including the UK, Rome, Norway, and the United States. He was a featured composer as a BBC "Introducing Artist" with his choral work 'O Nata Lux' on BBC Radio 3, "In Tune" Programme, and his music has been played multiple times on Classic FM and KUSC.

In 2020 he founded the San Diego based chamber choir Stellarum, and currently sits on the board of the Choral Consortium of San Diego.

Rehearsal Schedule

• 3rd June, Tuesday 7 - 9:30pm, Kensington Community Church
• 7th June, Saturday 9:30 -1pm, Kensington Community Church
• 10th June, Tuesday 7 - 9:30pm, Kensington Community Church
• 14th June, Saturday 9:30 -1pm, Kensington Community Church
• 17th June, Tuesday 7 - 9:30pm, Kensington Community Church

Concert - Saturday 21st June at First United Methodist Church

• 2 - 5pm rehearsal
• 6pm Concert
• Dress: Concert blacks

Host or Publisher Choral Consortium of San Diego