The Choir

One of London’s leading chamber choirs, The Purcell Singers was formed in 1994 by conductor and organist Mark Ford. We have performed extensively in London venues including St James’s Piccadilly, Southwark and St Paul’s Cathedrals, St John’s Smith Square, and the Royal Festival Hall, as well as outside London at the Brighton, Hurst and Howden Festivals, St Albans Cathedral and at the Langen Festival in Frankfurt. The choir has been awarded ‘Best Classical Performance’ at the Brighton Festival. The choir’s President is Sarah Walker CBE.

Our repertoire is wide, ranging from Gibbons to Tavener, via Bach, Howells, Poulenc, Barber and Britten, and we have developed a particular reputation for championing unusual late romantic works, notably those of the German composer Georg Schumann.

The choir has so far recorded four classical albums, including two première discs of works by Georg Schumann, the first of which was Gramophone Magazine’s Critics’ Choice in January 2002, and the second also described as a “hugely impressive disc” (Gramophone). Our recordings have been frequently broadcast on the radio, and we have appeared on television.

We are also active in session work, and can be heard on the cast album of Mary Poppins (the original West End production). We have recorded several discs for film and television at Angel Studios, as well as numerous film trailers at Abbey Road and Air Studios. You may recognise some of these tracks from the trailers for films such as King Kong, War of the Worlds, The Island, The Da Vinci Code, and Spider-man 3. We recorded Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for Madagascar 2 and some numbers for the West End production of Flashdance – The Musical.

Find out about audition sessions on our Join The Choir page, and if you are interested in booking The Purcell Singers, go to Book The Choir.

Founder Musical Director

Mark Ford was born in Bromley and educated at St Dunstan’s College, Catford, where he studied the organ with the international recitalist David Sanger. He continued his academic and musical studies at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he held an Organ Scholarship and read law. Whilst at Cambridge, Mark directed the Chapel Choir (whom he accompanied on tours to Bavaria and Ireland), as well as the college Choir and Orchestra, and sang in the University Chamber Choir under Timothy Brown.

He founded The Purcell Singers in 1994 and has directed them in concerts of wide-ranging music from the fifteenth century to the present day. With the choir he has also made four classical CD recordings, as well as ten commercial recordings of music for film and television. He has conducted sessions at all the major London recording studios.

Mark has carried out extensive research into the music of the late romantic composer Georg Schumann, and has recorded all of Schumann’s choral works with The Purcell Singers. He plans to release recordings of some of his other works in the future, including the composer’s piano music and songs.

By profession, Mark is a solicitor. He is a leading authority on legal process outsourcing and previously built a team of 60 lawyers in a pioneering business unit in his firm's Delhi office. Mark is currently Chief Knowledge Officer at a major US law firm and leads a team of more than 250 knowledge management professionals across the world.

Conductor

Jonathan Schranz is a freelance conductor based in London. He studied for an MMus and LRAM in Choral Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music where he was awarded a Distinction along with numerous prizes, and holds a first class music degree from the University of Cambridge.

Jonathan enjoys a diverse career ranging from leading choral workshops in high security prisons to performing at private functions with his funk band, The Handlers. He is Director of Music at St George’s Metropolitan Cathedral, Southwark, where he runs the professional Cathedral Choir and oversees the work of the Music Department. He is Musical Director at the University of Greenwich, conducting the 90-strong student and staff chorus, and he also runs the Victoria Children’s Choir, the outreach choir of Westminster Cathedral. He works as a Section Leader and Assistant Conductor for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and is founder-director of a number of his own groups including The Fisher Consort and Graduale. Jonathan has led choral workshops for the Royal School of Church Music, South West Camerata and Libricini, and is in demand as a guest conductor. Previous conducting positions include the Church of St John at Hackney, Grant Thornton Office Choir, Cambridge University Catholic Chaplaincy, Brentwood Choral Society, the Cappella Singers of Upminster, Churchill Chorus and Selwyn Jazz Band.

A firm believer in the transformative social impact of choral music, Jonathan is Head of Musical Development for the charity Sing Inside which delivers singing workshops in prisons across the country. His Master’s thesis, exploring the benefits of choral music within a prison chaplaincy, has been presented at the Universities of Leicester and Oxford.