Grayston Ives

Charles John Grayston Ives (born 1948), also known as Bill Ives, is a British composer, singer and choral director. Education and career Ives was a chorister at Ely Cathedral and later studied music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he held a choral scholarship. He began his career as a music teacher, before joining the King’s Singers from 1978 to 1985. His voice can be heard on a number of recordings from that period, including Paul McCartney’s Frog Chorus. From 1991 to 2009 he was the organist and choir director at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was also a Fellow and tutor in music. As well as being responsible for the daily musical life of the college chapel, he directed the choir in recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label. The album With a Merrie Noyse, made with the viol consort Fretwork and featuring the works of the English composer Orlando Gibbons, was nominated for a Grammy in 2004. Paul McCartney’s Ecce Cor Meum was written especially for the college choir, and the subsequent EMI recording won the Classical BRIT Award for album of the year in 2007. Other recordings with Magdalen College Choir include Listen Sweet Dove, a selection of Ives’s liturgical works, and Duru