The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge

The dreary third quarter of the Lent term can often feel like a real low point in the year! At least with the Michaelmas term there is Christmas to look forward to and, of course, exams are looming ever closer. Add to that the more sombre season of Lent and 'week 5 blues' start to seem like something of an understatement. However, it so happens that there are some positives, especially for members of the Choir. For starters, Lent brings along with it some of the best music written for Choirs – just this week the Choir will have sung Lassus's unsettled Timor et tremor (which features on our recent Lassus disc, Laudent Deum), Pelham Humfrey's stunning verse anthem, O Lord, my God and the beautiful Look down, O Lord by former Choral Scholar, Jonathan Seers. We also sang the first movement from Bach's St John Passion which we'll be singing for the first time ever, on 15 March in Chapel (book now for tickets which are almost sold out!).

Two Gents were starring in the University Operatic Society's main show of the year last weekend (Strauss's Die Fledermaus), we're singing Duruflé's Requiem with Gonville and Caius Choir and the Philharmonia on Friday at the Bedford Corn Exchange and the Easter Vacation does actually bring us some joy as we head off on tour to Germany and Denmark. We've ALSO just launched our newest CD, Mozart: Coronation Mass, with St John's Sinfonia and some star soloists – our Chorister parents are certainly happy with it, one of them even giving us "a little Lenten gift from our chickens ... I swear they lay better with good music".

So it's not actually so bad...