WHO WE ARE
SIMON HOLT, Music Director
While in the United Kingdom Simon gave organ recitals in Westminster Abbey, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, numerous Cathedrals, and the Royal Albert Hall in London. His discography includes a cassette of solo organ music and three CDs, two as an accompanist and the third conducting the Bristol Cathedral School symphony orchestra. He has also performed several times on national UK radio and television, including a live performance in the Royal Albert Hall while still at The Royal College of Music. He has also toured Europe widely and his performances have included those in Notre-Dame and Sacré Coeur as well as St. Mark’s Venice. He has performed in Holland, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Switzerland.
WILLIAM D. COOPER, Organist
The Anglican Singers are pleased to have Will Cooper join them as organist. William David Cooper is a conductor, organist, scholar and composer. Before coming to St. James (New London) as organist and choirmaster, he served in the same capacity at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Davis, California. He has also been director of the UC Davis Early Music Ensemble, and director of music at First Baptist Church in Lafayette, Indiana.
Cooper’s compositional output includes opera, orchestral, choral, vocal, chamber and electroacoustic music. In 2016 his opera Hagar was staged and performed at the National Opera Association convention in Indianapolis. He won the 2014 Black House Collective New Operas Competition, and his opera Cleopatra was subsequently performed at the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City. In 2013 he was commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria to compose Psalm 148. His music has also been performed by Augustin Hadelich, Liza Stepanova, the Lysander Trio, ECCE ensemble, AnticoModerno, the Lydian String Quartet, the Davis Madrigal Singers, and the Juilliard Orchestra, among others.
Cooper earned bachelors and masters degrees from the Juilliard School and a PhD from the University of California at Davis, studying composition with Samuel Adler, Robert Beaser, Kurt Rohde, Ross Bauer and Pablo Ortiz, and organ with Paul Jacobs. He received a 2014 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and three ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, including the 2012 Leo Kaplan Award. Cooper has also received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Wellesley Composers Conference, I-Park, Brush Creek, the Ucross Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
IN MEMORY OF MARIANNA WILCOX (1931-2017), Founding Director
Marianna Wilcox (1931-2017) earned her undergraduate degree in organ from Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, and went on to graduate study at the Hartt College of Music.
She served on the Music Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut and was past Dean of the New London County Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Marianna served as Director of The Anglican Singers for ten years from 1997 until 2007. Prior to founding The Anglican Singers, Marianna was Organist and Choirmaster at Calvary Episcopal Church in Stonington, CT. Marianna passed away Friday, Oct. 20, 2017. Her dedication and legacy will be remembered and cherished by many.
The Choristers
The Choristers who are The Anglican Singers have a deep interest in music of the English choral tradition and hail from a wide variety of musical and personal backgrounds.
Each of the singers is individually auditioned, highly motivated, and drawn to the beauty and rich tradition of the group’s music. Many of the singers are members of other professional and non-professional choral groups within the southeastern Connecticut area. The Singers rehearse from September through May with upwards of eight performances during this period, including one or more venues outside of the local area.
Because of their high level of dedication and performance, the group has been invited to sing at numerous venues throughout New England and beyond. The Berlioz Historical Brass requested the Singers to premiere Clifford Bevan’s Mendelssohn’s Seasons for choir and historical bass at the 2009 Amherst Early Music Festival. The Singers have also premiered two works by the eminent composer Robert J. Powell: the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in G minor (written in 1965 but not performed until 2007) and Benedictus es, Domine, written and performed in 2008 to honor the retirement of the group’s founding director, Marianna Wilcox. In December of 2012, the singers performed the world premiere of a new carol, “Unto us a child is born,” written by renowned composer Peter Neidmann for The Anglican Singers. The piece is currently in publication by Paraclete Press.
The Singers have served as resident choir for a week at a time at several cathedrals in England: Bristol Cathedral in 2012, Ely Cathedral in 2014 and Truro and Exeter Cathedrals in 2017. They are planning another trip to England in 2023.
The independently organized Anglican Singers are fortunate to have been guest Artists-in-Residence since 1996 at historic St. James Episcopal Church in New London, Connecticut.
Dorothy Adams, Anne Carr Bingham, Katherine Brighty, Kathleen Cooper, Lisa Feltes, Gillian Patrick, Anita Louise Schell, Wendy Schnur, Carla Stebbins, Manon Zumbaum
Susan Anderson, Deborah Downes, Susan Babbitt Hall, Mary Harris, Katy King, Meredith Miller, Alden Rockwell Murphy, Tina West
Robert Kim Bingham, Timothy Brightenstein, Hector Babcock Migliacci, Randy Russ
James Conover, Henry Robert D’Amelia, Sean McCarty, John Ong