Eleanor's conducting journey comes full circle

Mar 18
3 min read

Fans of James MacMillan's work in the audience for our concert this Saturday will recognise some of the familiar traits of the composer in his stunning piece: Domine Non Secundum Peccata Nostra - the use of chant, Scottish "snaps" and ornamentation will be no surprise. It's a stunning piece written in 2010 using text for Ash Wednesday and set for SSATTBB with solo violin.

What may be more of a surprise to our audience is that this piece will be conducted by Eleanor Cully Boehringer, a member of Fenham Ensemble.

When Eleanor joined us in September 2022, we not only gained a great soprano but also a composer "in residence" too. Eleanor is an artist and composer from Norwich currently based in Newcastle who draws on poetic text, fragments of song, imitation and imagined sound. Regular FE audiences will already have heard some of Eleanor's choral compositions. We had the privilege of premiering her piece Swan written for voice and cello for our 'Serenity' concert in March 2023, with the RNS's Gabriel Waite on cello https://soundcloud.com/eleanor-cully/swan At our Christmas concert that year we performed Eleanor's Perennial Ephemeral, a re-working of the British folk carol The Holly and the Ivy which won the 2023 Kantos Carol Competition. Eleanor has written for other choirs, notably Musarc, Chorus of the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Kantos Chamber Choir as well as compositions for ensembles such as BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, An Assembly and Apartment House. She is also a solo performer in her own right.

It was actually writing Swan for Fenham Ensemble that led Eleanor into choral conducting. As she explains:

"My conducting journey started with a question from our director, Simon Davies-Fidler back in 2023. He asked if I would write a piece for choir and cello for the 'Serenity' concert with cellist Gabriel Waite. I gladly accepted and when I produced the score for Swan he asked if I'd like to conduct it. I felt like I wouldn't know where to start but that question played on my mind for the rest of the Summer and the seed had been planted!"

Now, in 2026, after a conducting scholarship with another local choir Cappella, two training courses with national choral charity, Sing For Pleasure and experience working with the Newcastle Youth Choir, Eleanor has now taken up a job with Nine Voices an alternative choir for young people aged 13-18 at Hand Of, a charity giving children and young people unique creative opportunities to work alongside professional artists, musicians and academics in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne.

When Eleanor directs the choir in James MacMillan's Domine Non Secundum Peccata Nostra in this Saturday's concert, her journey into choral conducting has come full circle, back to Fenham Ensemble at St James' and St Basil's church.

"I'm really grateful to Simon for inspiring me to move into choral conducting a few years ago and for offering me the opportunity to return to Fenham Ensemble and to continue to practise leading the choir. It's particularly exciting to be directing a performance with Jane Nossek playing violin and I've loved taking a couple of sectionals with my fellow sopranos to explore the melodic writing. I'm really looking forward to Saturday evening; it's been lovely to sing with FE again." https://www.eleanorcully.co.uk/

SING GENTLY

Sublime choral music for Springtime

SATURDAY 21 MARCH, 7.30PM

St James' and St Basil's Church, Fenham, NE4 9XP

Tickets: £12, under 18s free

Available from: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/sdfchoralevents

PROGRAMME

Gloria from Missa Brevis - Jonathan Dove

Yugoslav Folk Songs - Matyas Seiber

Domine Non Secundum Peccata Nostra - James MacMillan

Crucifixus - Antonio Lotti

Sing Gently - Eric Whitacre