High Praise for ETS

Caterham School’s joint Prep and Senior Chapel Choir, ETS (Eric Thiman Singers) has been given high praise and acclaim in a recent publication from the Eric Thiman Collection. This organisation, run by Southwell Minster Choir Association has taken on the task of compiling and recording the works of Old Caterhamian, Eric Thiman.

The recently published review refers to the wonderful sound of ETS:

“The latter part of the CD is given over to The Eric Thiman Singers of Caterham School – especially nice as Dr Thiman was himself a pupil at that school. The bright, fresh, unforced sound of these young voices is shaped well by Annie Ingrassia’s most musical conducting, supported by the sensitive accompaniment of the school’s Director of Music, Adam Assen.

It is in such simple but really quite remarkable upper-voice pieces that we hear Eric Thiman in his best-known genre, writing for amateurs. ‘Evening in the Birchpath’ is outstanding,

though all the items are first-rate. This CD celebrates the enormous contribution to British Music by an often under-rated composer. One cannot but feel that Dr. Thiman would have been very pleased with this CD. It is, I think, unique in being the only modern recording solely of his music.”

The CD celebrating the choral music of Eric Thiman was recorded at school, in the Wilberforce Hall in 2016 and it appears on both iTunes and Spotify. ETS is an upper-voice choir that brings together pupils from the Prep school from Year 5 and the Senior school with pupils up to Third Year. Their impressive list of achievements include performances at St. John’s Smith Square, Westminster Abbey, St. Peter’s in the Vatican and many other prestigious venues. They have performed original works as well as a huge range of pieces by well-known composers, focusing on British choral composers from the Renaissance onwards.

Eric Thiman (1900 – 1975) was a composer, conductor, teacher and organist. He was a significant figure in British musical life in the mid-twentieth century, being a keen advocate of amateur music-making and a prolific composer of music for church choirs, including a large number of partsongs, anthems and carols. His piano and vocal music is popularly found on the ABRSM exam syllabus.