Stephen Layton was awarded the Diapason D'Or for best choral disc of the year last night in Paris for his Britten disc Sacred and Profane with his choir Polyphony on the Hyperion label – a disc which also won the Gramophone Award for best choral disc in 2001.
The award crowns a week of good news for Stephen Layton, in which
announcement has been made of his involvement in a major project with
John Tavener in 2003. Tavener has composed The Veil of the Temple specially
for The Choir of The Temple Church, where Stephen is Director of Music,
and Stephen's choir The Holst Singers. The work will take the form of
an All Night Vigil, premiered at The Temple Church in June 2003.
Tomorrow Stephen returns to King’s College, Cambridge, where he
was organ scholar, to conduct a performance of Bach's B minor mass with
The Holst Singers and soloists Emma Kirby, Michael Chance, James Gilchrist
and
Jonathan Lemalu. (25:10:02)