We are delighted to announce that Lucy Walker has been elected Fellow Commoner at Clare Hall and will serve as Composer-in-Residence from 2024 to 2026. Lucy is quickly establishing her place as one of Britain’s foremost emerging compositional voices, and she also works as a music educator, teaching musical analysis, theory and harmony to undergraduate students at the University of Cambridge. She will write at least six new pieces of choral music during her tenure, five shorter pieces and one long work to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1966 founding of Clare Hall.  All these works will be premiered in performances by Continuum choir, with whom she maintains a similar relationship, or the Clare Hall Choir directed by Ben de Souza.

“I am so happy to be embarking on this exciting partnership with Continuum and Clare Hall. It is a privilege to be welcomed into these two thriving musical communities, and I look forward to exploring new sounds and ideas with the wonderful singers,” Lucy said.

From 2025 to 2027, Lucy will also be the first Composer-in-Residence of Continuum. Lucy is currently Composer-in-Residence at St Martin in the Fields and was recognised as one of Classic FM’s Rising Stars in 2024. Gaining widespread acclaim for her vivid and inspiring choral compositions, she was praised by Bob Chilcott who says her music is “beautifully crafted and full of light.” Her impressive portfolio includes choral works commissioned by the BBC Singers, VOCES8, The Sixteen, and numerous Cathedral Choirs across the UK. 

Harry Guthrie, Director of Continuum, says: “I am delighted to be beginning this new partnership with Lucy. It will be wonderful to welcome her into our musical family and collaborate over an extended period. I am excited for her to get to know the choir and our singers better and to share the results with new audiences. I am also very pleased to be working in collaboration with Clare Hall, Cambridge, in premiering these pieces of music. It was a pleasure to perform our programme of Iberian music for the Clare Hall community in March 2024, and I am looking forward to our next concert at the College later in April”. 

Lucy was asked to compose the fifth-anniversary commission for Continuum, premiered in October 2024. Listen to the consoling and mediative anthem ‘In peace, I will lie down and sleep’, setting words from Psalm 4, here:

You can hear this piece live in a concert celebrating Lucy’s music – and music written for other Cambridge Colleges – on Saturday 26th April in the Dining Hall at Clare Hall, Cambridge at 7.30pm. Tickets can be purchased here. The concert is a wonderful celebration of the music Lucy has written and also features music by Charles Villiers Stanford, Arvo Pärt, Orlando Gibbons, Ēriks Ešenvalds and others.