Francis Grier: Twelve Anthems

Info & track listings

Francis Grier was a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, the first music scholar at Eton College, and then organ scholar at King’s College. As a young boy he composed a great deal, but the first part of his musical career was mainly taken up with performing. After Cambridge he became Simon Preston’s assistant at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, succeeding him as Organist and Tutor in Music in 1981, at the age of 25.

In 1985 he resigned his appointments to study music, theology, and meditation in India, and then worked with people with learning difficulties in communities in London and Bangalore. Since 1989 he has been based in England again, and now divides his time between composition and psychodynamic counselling.

James Bowman has been one of the world’s foremost counter-tenors for over 25 years. He has had an active career on the opera stage and the concert platform, with performances and tours all over the world, and he has made about 100 records, many of them of early music but also including operas.