Farewell Songs

Aim

Vasari Singers need your help to put 7 new choral works into the world!

Our project, 'Farewell Songs', will mark the retirement of our director Jeremy Backhouse after 47 years at the helm. We want to acknowledge this extraordinary achievement and importantly also look forward to pastures new, so we have asked seven contemporary British composers who know the choir well to reimagine the original 'Songs of Farewell' by Hubert Parry for the next generation of choral singers. We will record the pieces for the Naxos label and the CD will be launched in autumn 2027. We will also ensure a lasting legacy by publishing the works as a set for choirs to add to their libraries.

Vasari Singers has commissioned and performed many new choral works during Jeremy's time as MD, and we are proud of our contribution to the UK and international choral scene. With your support towards the costs of recording, you will be helping us bring these works to life, creating a lasting legacy for Jeremy as he celebrates his final season.

More about the project

Seven composers. One farewell. A future repertoire.

In 1980, Jeremy Backhouse joined a small chamber choir, founded by members of the London Symphony Chorus. In those early days, he stepped in as conductor ‘until they found someone else’. Forty‑seven years, many concerts, and one of the most active new-music commissioning programmes in British choral music later, Vasari Singers is an established part of the country’s choral scene, with an enviable reputation for variety and versatility.

In December 2027, Jeremy will step down as Music Director. As a choir that’s rooted in commissioning and performing new music, we wanted to mark this important moment with an exciting new commissioning project.

Farewell Songs asks seven British composers, each with a genuine personal connection to Vasari, to respond to C. H. H. Parry's Songs of Farewell: the six-movement a cappella sequence Parry wrote in the last years of his life. Each composer has reimagined one of Parry's original texts, and we have also added a new Requiem aeternam to close the work, to give hope to what otherwise might be seen as a rather forlorn epitaph.

The result is a new, highly spiritual and moving choral work, recorded, published, and written to be sung by other choirs for years to come. As Jeremy's chapter closes, the choir's next one opens in the same breath.

Why Parry?

Parry wrote his Songs of Farewell between 1916 and 1918, setting poets from John Donne to Henry Vaughan, as his country processed loss on a scale it hadn't before. The songs have since become some of the best-loved unaccompanied works in the British choral tradition.

Vasari has commissioned more than 25 new choral works during Jeremy’s tenure – recording several world premieres and many other contemporary pieces as part of its ongoing recording programme, several as world premiere recordings. Farewell Songs continues that work, tying it, for the first time, directly to music the whole choral world already knows and loves.

“The Parry Songs of Farewell have been a much-loved and central part of the Vasari Singers’ repertoire since its outset,” says Jeremy. “We recorded the pieces for Guild in 1996, 30 years ago. I adore these pieces; they really speak to me. The spiritual journey that Parry takes us on is always deeply moving and his choice of texts reflects his grief at the devastating loss and futility of World War I, as well as his own personal and professional problems at the end of his life when these glorious pieces were composed. Our idea is to take this beautiful set of texts that Parry assembled and reimagine them in a contemporary musical light, to update them in a way that may reflect today’s world more relevantly.”

The composers

Seven voices, one lineage

Each composer has written for or worked closely with Vasari before or been significantly supported by the choir's commissioning programme. They’ve been personally selected by Jeremy, chosen for their genuine and long-term relationship with the choir.

Gabriel Jackson

Like Jeremy, Gabriel was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music. For Vasari Singers, he has written Now I have known, O Lord in 2004 for our 25th Anniversary in 2005 and his landmark Requiem in 2008. We have recorded both works, as well as various of his other anthems and carols.

Will Todd

Will’s music is loved by choirs around the world. In 2006, Vasari Singers made the first ever commercial recording of his popular Mass in Blue, and we have also commissioned Angel Song II in 2004 and recorded that and many other motets and carols.

Bob Chilcott

Bob’s connection with Vasari goes back nearly 40 years, and he has been a long-term friend of the choir. Commissions include Dances in the Streets in 2000 and we have recorded his Salisbury Motets, plus many of his carols and anthems.

Roxanna Panufnik

The choir loves singing Roxanna’s music, most recently performing her magnificent Westminster Mass in London and glorious Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis at Canterbury Cathedral in 2026. Roxanna’s commissions for Vasari include Laughing Song in 2000 and we have recorded Deus est caritas and her arrangement of a Ukrainian carol Sleep, Jesus, sleep.

Jonathan Rathbone

A long-term collaborator with Vasari Singers, Jonathan’s arrangements and compositions have featured in many of our concerts and recordings. In particular, we commissioned his powerful, moving Under the shadow of His wing in 2014, which we recorded the following year.

Francis Pott

Francis and Jeremy have formed a close working relationship over many years. In 2004, we commissioned The Cloud of Unknowing, an epic masterpiece,  which we recorded in 2007. In addition, we have loved performing his My song is love unknown and have sung and recorded his When David heard.

Cecilia McDowall

Cecilia’s choral music is in high demand from choirs worldwide. We have enjoyed singing many of her choral works: The Lord is good, Adoro te devote and Aurea luce, the latter which we have also recorded.

Help us to write the next chapter

Every gift made through our Crowdfunder goes toward commissioning fees, the Naxos recording, and publishing the score so other choirs can sing and enjoy it. Please think about how you can help us bring this project to life - we're incredibly grateful for anything you can donate.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 24th December 2026 at 12:08am