Matthew Clark - Musical Director
Matthew Clark became musical director of Musica Vera chamber choir in 2020 and he is also musical director of Clevedon Choral Society.
Matthew was born in Bedford and studied singing with Rachel Nicholls before undertaking a degree in composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where he developed an interest in conducting. He worked with Constanza Ladies Choir and the Serenata Singing Group before his move to Gloucester in 2016 to take up the role of bass lay clerk. He occasionally conducts the cathedral clerks and scholars in services at the Cathedral and at the Three Choirs Festival.
Matthew sings regularly with a variety of choirs and as a baritone soloist. Alongside his regular position in the Choir of Gloucester Cathedral, he has sung with groups including the BBC National Chorus of Wales, the Armonico Consort, Cantemus Chamber Choir Wales and the Choirs of Llandaff Cathedral. As a soloist he has sung various solo roles with several different ensembles in the South West, the Midlands & South Wales He has sung in such varied locations as the ballroom of Buckingham Palace, a shopping centre in Coventry, Glamorgan County Cricket Club and an aircraft hangar in South Wales, as well as several more conventional concert venues.
As a composer, Matthew has also written a large amount of vocal music, both solo and choral. He has been commissioned by ensembles in London, Cardiff, Bristol and for Gloucester Cathedral Choir. His latest project is a commission for the Gloucester-based Chamber Choir, Sabrinensis, to be premiered as part of the Three Choirs Festival in 2023.
History of the choir
Musica Vera chamber choir was founded by Graham Smallbone, Director of Music at Dean Close School, Cheltenham. The first concert was held at Christ Church, Cheltenham, on Saturday 5 December 1964 with Graham Smallbone conducting the Choir accompanied by The Cheltenham String Players. Graham was the Choir’s conductor up to and including the concert held in October 1966, before his move to Marlborough.
Graham took the Choir’s title from “An Illustrated History of Music” by Marc Pincherle, who quoted the mediaeval latin tag Musica ficta est musica vera (False music is real music) – or translations to that effect. This refers to the familiar, but undefined, performance practice that involved sharpening or flattening notes to make them convincing in their context – without any indication in the parts that this should be done. The performers, almost invariably singers, were expected to make these adjustments as a result of their experience, understanding and musical sophistication. The alphabetical notes, unaltered, were the standard modes – the true (vera) notes in a basic sense. Hence, making the adjustments (ficta) made the music correct (vera) as a performance without the necessary unwritten amendments would not be acceptable or authentic.
Among the early soloists was Dame Felicity Lott, who gave what could have been her first public performance in Handel’s Messiah on 13 March 1965 at Christ Church, when she was still at Pates Grammar School. A group that included most of the founder members of what later became the King’s Singers (Martin Lane, Alastair Hume, Neil Jenkins, Alastair Thompson, Richard Salter, and Brian Kay) sang in a performance of Monterverdi’s Vespers (1610) in Tewkesbury Abbey on 26 June 1966.
Musica Vera chamber choir usually holds its concerts in Cheltenham, most recently in St Mary’s Church Prestbury. It has in earlier years ventured further afield with concerts in St Peter’s College Oxford, Tewkesbury Abbey, churches in Gloucester, Northleach, and Winchcombe, and twice at Saint Mary’s Church, Bampton. The Choir has also given several concerts at Grange Village, Newnham on Severn, and has sung for the residents of Capel Court in Prestbury and Windsor Street Care Home.