Chris Burrell, JAC (Judith Ann Clingan), Geoff Brennan, Janet Hough (Healey), Paul Thom,
Susie Hough (Barker), Andrew Barker, Katherine Walker, Laurie Murchison3
SCUNA history » Groups with a link to SCUNA » The University Consort
"[In about 1967] a small group of 3-4 SCUNA members and various ex-SCUNAE formed, under the name University Consort. This group had a fairly long and certainly illustrious career, and always drew all or most of its personnel from the current or past ranks of SCUNA."1
Graham Kerrison, our second conductor, stopped conducting SCUNA after 1965 but "he was still around, and it was he who started the consort and conducted it in its early days."2
By the time I first heard the Consort, in 1968, Geoffrey Brennan was conducting and the personnel was more or less as shown in the photo below.
The University Consort functioned as a completely separate organisation from SCUNA, with its own structure and its own concerts. These, as I recall, were absolutely outstanding. They often took place in University House Dining Hall. The group usually consisted of eight voices.
Chris Burrell, JAC (Judith Ann Clingan), Geoff Brennan, Janet Hough (Healey), Paul Thom,
Susie Hough (Barker), Andrew Barker, Katherine Walker, Laurie Murchison3
Some Consort members continued to be involved with SCUNA: Andrew Barker as soloist; Judith Clingan, Janet Allan and Susan Barker as members and soloists; Christopher Burrell as conductor; Judith Clingan as conductor; Laurie Murchison as accompanist; Geoffrey Brennan as soloist.
Members of the University Consort group of singers rehearsing last night at University House for their concert on November 23 [1969]. They are (from left) tenor Andrew Barker, sopranos Susan Barker and Janet Allan and tenor Chris Burrell.
So much information (or the prospect of information) turned up on Trove about the University Consort that I have made a separate page for performances, and a further page for the Consort's September 1969 performance of Purcell's King Arthur.
See separate page.
1From an unsigned history of SCUNA in Erato 19 of October 1975
2From a conversation of 12 October 2012 with Andrew Barker, University Consort member 1967-1969
3Transcription of Judith Clingan's handwritten notes. Together with the photo, they were scanned from a page in JAC 1945-1983, one of Judith Clingan's albums of memorabilia
Other Consort pages: