Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Steven Grahl & Benjamin Sheen
Biography Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Steven Grahl & Benjamin Sheen
The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
founded 500 years ago, holds a distinctive place within the great English choral tradition. Unlike all other collegiate and cathedral choirs, it serves both an Oxford college and a diocese. The choir is revered for the vibrancy of its sound and its artistic flexibility, performing early and contemporary music with equal skill. Over the years the choir has provided a perfect platform for singers to progress to other award-winning choral groups such as the BBC Singers, The Sixteen, The King’s Singers, The Tallis Scholars and The Cardinall’s Musick as well as to solo careers in oratorio, opera and musical theatre. On recent tours, in addition to performing its own programmes, the choir has worked intensively alongside local community choirs in Portugal, Jamaica, Bermuda, China and the USA, culminating in successful and memorable joint concerts. Christ Church Cathedral Choir boasts a legacy of ground-breaking recordings which have excited the critics and the listening public for over thirty years. The astonishing versatility of this choir gives them a strong media profile, featuring in more than fifteen documentaries in the last ten years.
Benjamin Sheen
was Sub-Organist at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford from 2020-2023. Hailed as a “brilliant organist” by the New York Times, he is the 2013 winner of the Pierre S. du Pont First Prize in the inaugural Longwood Gardens Organ Competition, and that same year received Second Prize and the Jon Laukvik prize at the St. Alban’s International Organ Competition. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the Juilliard School, is a prize- winning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, and the 2011 recipient of the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medal. As a concert organist, Mr. Sheen has performed throughout Europe, the USA, Canada, Singapore, and South Africa. He has also made concerto appearances with the Auckland Philharmonic and Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York City. Before returning to the UK in 2020, he spent eight years at the famed Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue in New York City as Associate Organist and as Acting Director of Music after the death of John Scott in 2015. Since January 2023, Mr. Sheen has served as Director of Music at Jesus College, Cambridge.
Steven Grahl
was Director of Music and Tutor in Music at Christ Church, Oxford 2018-2023, during which time he was also an Associate Professor of Music at Oxford University, and Conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford. Steven served as Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral from 2014 to 2018, where he was responsible for training the Cathedral Choir, and for the re-pitching of the Hill Organ, on which instrument he recorded a solo CD. Peterborough Cathedral Choir’s recording of Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s EvenYouSong, made under Steven’s direction, was released to critical acclaim in December 2017. Steven was an interpretation finalist in the International Organ Competitions at St Albans (UK) in 2011, and in Dudelange (Luxembourg) in 2013, and completed his term as President of the Incorporated Association of Organists in 2019. He is a prize-winning graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, and the Royal Academy of Music, gained the top prizes in the FRCO examination, and is also a holder of the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medallion. In 2010, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
