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About the
Sharing our passion for classical and contemporary music
Sharing our passion for classical and contemporary music
About the choir
About the choir
For more than a quarter-century, the Paris Choral Society has delighted international audiences with outstanding performances of choral masterworks acclaimed in Paris and beyond.
Lifted by one hundred voices accompanied by professional soloists and orchestras, Paris Choral Society programs draw on celebrated requiems, masses and other pieces by Mozart, Handel, Boulanger, Verdi, Haydn, Hildegard von Bingen, Bach, Fauré and Mendelssohn, to name a few.
We also perform the finest in modern choral works by Benjamin Britten, Nathaniel Dett, Maurice Duruflé, Elaine Hagenberg, Kim Porter, Carl Rütti and others with occasional forays into American hymns and spirituals and operatic favorites.
The chorale is unique in Paris, too, for its membership, which the New York Times once described as “unpaid but professional-level.” Its singers are French- and English-speaking, of all ages and backgrounds, and competition at auditions can be lively. All are committed to a spirit of musical excellence.
Whittaker: Sainte-Chapelle
Whittaker: Sainte-Chapelle
In April 2022, the Paris Choral Society made a unique recording of Eric Whitacre’s “Sainte-Chapelle” in the famous Parisian chapel itself.
Burchard: Stabat Mater
Burchard: Stabat Mater
In 2019, the PCS performed its first choral premiere, the Stabat Mater, whose American composer, Richard Burchard, worked closely with the chorale, maestro Ullery, and accompanist Andrew Dewar in perfecting the work for its first world performances. You can learn more about the performance in this video.
Other events
Other events
We also participate in music festivals and special concerts, including Fête de la Musique, Nuit Blanche, a concert with a visiting Norwegian orchestra and choir celebrating Norway’s centennial, an international choral competition in Prague, a concert on Radio France, and Christmas “flash mobs” at Paris department stores.
Musical leadership
Musical leadership
Lewis Hammond
Lewis Hammond
Interim Music Director
Hailing from Maldon in Essex, Lewis graduated from the University of Oxford in 2020. For three years he was an academical clerk in the Choir of New College where he read Music. Whilst at New College, he studied singing with Bronwen Mills and participated in masterclasses with the renowned countertenor, Andreas Scholl. As an undergraduate, Lewis conducted programmes of baroque music with the Wykeham Ensemble (French grands motets, Bach cantatas, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri), large-scale performances of Schütz (Weihnachtshistorie), Schumann (Das Paradies und die Peri), and Haydn (Nelson Mass) with the Oxford University Chorus, as well as being invited to conduct the University Opera Society’s production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 2019.
Also at home in an earlier repertory, Lewis is a founding member of ‘Fount and Origin’ (directed by James Tomlinson). In 2019, the group was awarded a recording contract by the early music label “Inventa Records”, a sub-label of Resonus Classics. The recording, inspired by Rogier van der Weyden’s polyptych in Beaune’s Hôtel-Dieu, is comprised of music contemporary to the altarpiece written by Antoine Brumel and Johannes Ockeghem as well as many anonymous settings of texts related to the Last Judgement. The disc was highly acclaimed by both BBC Music and Gramophone magazines. ‘F&O’ made its Italian concert debut in Padua in January 2024.
In 2022, Lewis concluded his studies at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles where he specialised in the performance of 17th and 18th century music. Recordings with the CMBV include Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (direction: Olivier Schneebeli), Rameau’s Achanthe et Céphise and Deux opéras pour le roi Louis XV by Colin de Blamont (Alexis Kossenko), Back to Lully with Véronique Gens (Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas), and Marais’s Ariane et Bacchus (Hervé Niquet). Whilst at the CMBV Lewis also participated in masterclasses with the renowned conductors Hervé Niquet and Emmanuelle Haïm.
Among other professional groups, Lewis regularly sings with Ensemble Correspondances (Sébastien Daucé) and Les Surprises (Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas). This summer, Lewis performed with Ensemble Pygmalion (Raphaël Pichon) at the international Festival of Aix-en-Provence and will rejoin them in September for their tour of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine.
Lewis currently studies orchestral conducting as part of the cycle spécialisé under the tutorship of Michaël Cousteau at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Paris. Alongside his recent appointment as interim conductor of the Paris Choral Society, Lewis directs two other vocal ensembles: Le Fil d’Or (a professional ensemble focused on 15th and 16th music, with a particular interest in English repertoire) and the Flying Fishes (a chamber choir with whom he has conducted programmes of English and Italian madrigals, French Renaissance chansons, German songs, and English Partsongs). Their next project is an all-French programme of Poulenc and Debussy.
Samuel Gaskin
Samuel Gaskin
Accompanist
Samuel Gaskin shared 1st prize in the 2023 St. Albans International Organ Improvisation Competition and is currently semi-finalist in the 2024 Canadian International Organ Competition. As composer and arranger, recent premieres include While I Wait, for mezzo-soprano and piano, Chase, for the ~Nois Saxophone Quartet, and an organ accompaniment of César Franck’s Sonata in A major for violin.
After his studies with Jesse Eschbach at the University of North Texas, Samuel received a 2022-23 Fulbright study grant to France, where he finished two Artist Diplomas at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Versailles: in organ with Jean-Baptiste Robin, and in jazz studies with Sylvain Beuf. Samuel is currently professor of classical and jazz piano at the Ecole de musique in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt and organist at the American Church in Paris (7e arrondissement).
Andrew Dewar
Andrew Dewar
Honorary Accompanist
Andrew Dewar’s musical career started at an early age; he began playing the Organ at his local church in Yeovil (Somerset) at the age of nine. With a scholarship to Wells Cathedral School in 1996 he studied the Organ with Rupert Gough, David Sanger, David Briggs (improvisation) and Harpsichord with Dr David Ponsford. From 1999-2000 he was Organ Scholar at Wells Cathedral before moving to Germany where he studied at the Musikhochschule, Stuttgart, with Prof Dr Ludger Lohmann. Andrew is currently Organist at the American Cathedral in Paris.
Andrew has won prizes in the following organ competitions:
First Prizes
Pipeworks International Organ Competion, Dublin 2014
St Albans International Organ Competition 2005 (Including Audience Prize)
Bach prize, Wiesbaden 2005
Mendelssohn Competition, Berlin 2003
International Organ Competition, Landau an der Isar 2002 (Plus the Arthur Piechler Interpretation Prize)
Plymouth National Young Organists’ Competition 2001
Second Prizes
Canadian International Organ Competition, Montreal 2014 (Plus the Bach Prize)
Canadian International Organ Competition, Montreal 2008 (Plus the Olivier Messiaen Prize)
International Bach/Liszt Competion, Erfurt 2008 (Plus the Julius Reubke Interpretation Prize)
International E. F. Walcker Competition, Schramberg 2004
Organ ART Museum, Rhein-Nahe 2003
St Albans International Organ Competition 2003
Andrew performs solo recitals throughout Europe, Russia and North America. 2015 engagements include the Cirencester Organ Festival (UK), Jeunesse Concert Series Vienna, Thüringer Bach Wochen (Germany), and the Festival Bach de Montréal.
Live recordings from recent concerts can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ardinsel33.
He served as a jury member at the 2015 International BACH | LISZT Organ Competition in Weimar/Erfurt (Germany).
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