In 2023 they appointed their first Composer-in-Residence, Lucy Walker, and recently recorded the first album of her choral works, to critical acclaim. They have also released two Christmas albums (A Winter Breviary (2023) and A Babe is Born (2025)), and a collection of works by American composer, Ned Rorem (Ned Rorem: Choral Works (2025)). St Martin’s Voices regularly commission and premiere new works, collaborating with composers including Bob Chilcott, Will Todd, Yshani Perinpanayagam, Anna Disley-Simpson and Emily Hazrati.
Zeb Soanes presents Relaxing Evenings at Seven on Classic FM, the UK’s most popular classical music station. Over a 25-year career at the BBC, he was an authoritative newsreader on Radio 4, the reassuring voice of The Shipping Forecast and presented the Proms on BBC Television. As a concert presenter and narrator he performs with the UK’s leading orchestras, ensembles and choirs. He is the author of the bestselling Gaspard the Fox series of books that have been adapted as narrated concert works by Jonathan Dove. His story, Gaspard’s Christmas, gently introduces children to the concept of homelessness and Zeb has gifted royalties from this book in perpetuity to support the work of St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Zeb was born in Lowestoft, the same hometown as Benjamin Britten and recently completed a five-year project to install a bronze statue of the composer, represented at the young age when his talent was recognised, to encourage other local children to follow their dreams. Britten as a Boy, by the Royal sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley, was unveiled by Sir John Rutter on 10th November.
In 2025, Zeb was awarded the Betjeman Society Award for his live tour of the Poet Laureate’s cult album Betjeman’s Banana Blush; made a Lay Canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral and appointed Chancellor of the University of Suffolk.
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