Collegium Records was established by composer-conductor John Rutter in 1983 as a dedicated label for his chamber choir the Cambridge Singers. Their inaugural release was Gloria, which to date has sold over 250,000 copies. The following year their recording of the Fauré Requiem in its 1893 chamber version won a Gramophone award, setting a precedent for the label’s policy of featuring choral music of different periods in recordings of uncompromising musical and audio quality.

The Collegium catalogue includes a number of CD ‘firsts’: Poulenc’s sacred music, Byrd and Howells’s motets and anthems, a 70^th-birthday tribute album for Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, choral music of award-winning young composer Tarik O’Regan, and the choral works, large and small, of the label’s founder John Rutter.

Christmas music has always formed an important and popular strand in the Collegium discography – the 25^th anniversary of the label was celebrated with A Christmas Festival, a new album inspired by John Rutter’s annual concerts given in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.