Since its foundation in 1957, the Tiffin Boys’ Choir has been one of the few state school choirs to have been continually at the forefront of the choral music scene in Britain. The choir has worked with all the London orchestras and performs regularly with the Royal Opera. Recent engagements have included Britten’s War Requiem (Philharmonia/Maazel), Mahler 3 (LSO/Bychkov), Parsifal (Mariinsky/Gergiev), as well as the soundtrack for The Hobbit and The Croods at Abbey Road studios. With altos, tenors and basses also drawn entirely from within the school, the choir gives regular concerts in London and tours regularly, including to Australia in 2011.

The choir has made recordings of most of the orchestral repertoire that includes boys’ choir. Notable releases have included Mahler 8 (EMI/Tennstedt), which was nominated for a Grammy Award, Puccini Il Trittico, Massenet Werther and Puccini Tosca (EMI/Pappano), Britten Billy Budd (Chandos/Hickox), Mahler 3 (LSO Live/Gergiev and Telarc/Zander), and Britten War Requiem (LPO Live/Masur). Members of the choir feature in DVD releases of Carmen, La Bohème, Tosca and Hänsel und Gretel from the Royal Opera House. In addition, the choir is heavily involved with the Sing Up programme for schools and makes regular exemplar recordings of songs for national distribution.

Tiffin School is state grammar school and specialist Arts College in Kingston-upon-Thames, described by OFSTED as ‘exceptional’. The majority of the 1200 boys in the school play a musical instrument, and over 100 boys study Music at GCSE and A Level. Several members of the choir have gained university choral scholarships on leaving Tiffin: there are ex-Tiffinians currently singing in the choirs of King’s, St John’s, Trinity and Jesus Colleges in Cambridge, and Exeter, Magdalen, Oriel and St Edmund Hall Colleges in Oxford.