Choral music is flourishing in Taiwan: composer Will Todd on his experiences collaborating with the Soochow University Alumni Choir in Taiwan

Will Todd & Soochow University Alumni Choir

Composer Will Todd has been collaborating with a choir in Taiwan, the Soochow University Alumni Choir, first performing his Mass in Blue in 2024 then writing a commission for them and then creating what he consider his third jazz oratorio (after Mass in Blue and Passion Music). Todd and the choir performed it me twice in Taiwan and again in the summer touring to Japan. In this article, Will Todd talks about his experiences being in Taiwan, Taiwanese choral music and his new Christmas-themed oratorio, The Promise written for the Soochow University Alumni Choir.

Choral music is flourishing in Taiwan with beautiful performances of Western music and excellent newer compositions from contemporary Taiwanese composers. There are choirs all over the country and several top class choral conducting and singing programmes at Taiwanese Universities. I know this because I have experienced it first hand having had the good fortune to work there over the past three years. Beginning with an invitation from Soochow University Alumni Choir to perform my jazz choral work Mass in Blue I travelled there in 2024 where the choir gave a brilliant performance, with guest jazz musicians at the National Concert Hall of Taipei. And it was packed out with nearly 2000 concert goers! Also on the programme were works by Taiwanese composers some of whom had been commissioned by Soochow University Alumni Choir. Among these modern compositions, sometimes reflecting Chinese folk music traditions as well as skilfully weaving in more lyrical western harmonic elements and setting Chinese and Taiwanese texts, we heard, among others music by Weng Ching-hsi, Tianhao Ran, Shen-Hsien Liu and Yu Chung-yuan. I also visited the Soochow University and was privileged to direct a masterclass with a group of excellent up and coming young composers, their emerging styles often blending pop and classical genres and showing a real enthusiasm for choral music.

Following on from the performance of Mass in Blue the Soochow Choir commissioned me to write a similar scale work leaving the theme and words up to me. I was thrilled as it was another opportunity to work with them and I knew I’d be getting an excellent performance. They were super committed to the process and as well as an early workshop in London we had a full week of rehearsals in Taiwan four months before the premiere to iron out problems, make improvements and develop the work. It’s so wonderful when that can happen – it connects the commissioning choir more to the work and it definitely helps the composer!

I have wanted for a long time to write a Christmas-themed oratorio and this seemed like the perfect chance to explore this idea more fully. Thus, the new multi movement piece, The Promise, began to come to life. There is of course an abundance of wonderful Advent and Christmas texts and I wanted initially to set so many! In the end the structure is 10 movements, where the 10th is a reprise of material from movement 7th, a concept I use both in Mass in Blue and my other extended jazz choral work, the Easter-themed Passion Music. Other texts include the Advent Responsory I look from afar, Adam Lay Y bounden, The Angel Gabriel, verses from the Magnificat, A Rose Has Sprung Up and words from Isaiah, ‘the people who walked in darkness…’. Two Latin texts O Oriens and Conditor Alme Sidernum and a poem of my own entitled The Promise complete the approximately 40 minute work.

Scored for piano bass drums sax and a second keyboard providing organ patches (traditional and electric) with a vibrant soprano solo a la Mass in Blue, the styles mix driving and funky grooves with more lyrical and balladic material and the focus is on the choir who are crucial to the impact of the whole piece. Soochow University Alumni Choir did a magnificent job of the December 2025 premiere at the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts which they repeated again at the National Concert Hall in Taipei in January 2026 [see performance on YouTube]. Having taken the piece to Japan in the summer they will finally come to the UK in January to do 2 performances, with the UK premiere taking place at St Martin in the Fields in January 2027 where they will collaborate with the St Martin’s Chamber choir, the Will Todd Ensemble and soprano Lorna James conducted by the fabulous Chie-Fen Weng. The Taiwanese choir will also present some of the wonderful Taiwanese choral music I mentioned earlier, in the first part of the concert.

Will Todd & Soochow University Alumni Choir

This year also saw a commercial recording with St Martin’s Voices which will be released in October by Signum Records [further details] alongside a new recording of my Jazz Carols, which St Martins commissioned in 2014. With workshops at Leith Hill Festival later this year and at the Association of British Choral Directors in February 2027 I’m hoping choral directors and choirs in the UK will fall in love with this new piece of which I’m super proud. The scores are available from Boosey and Hawkes from November and you can hear it live in London on 15th January and again on the 16th January in Cambridge.