Reviews: Trinity College London Singing Grade Books

Although Trinity College London's release of its new graded vocal songbooks in 2018 marked the organisation's first singing-related publications in a decade, it is pleasing to see that it now appears to be settling into a regular cycle of releases. The 2023 syllabus is now accompanied by fresh repertoire books for each grade; a new approach to sight-reading; and a supporting volume, by Ben Vonberg-Clark, entitled Introducing Singing. It should be noted that the repertoire updates to the syllabus are more additions and tweaks than replacements, so most of the repertoire from previous volumes is still valid – welcome news for teachers who invested heavily in the last set of publications. There are, however, a couple of key changes to the syllabus that singing teachers should be aware of: List A songs (Opera, Oratorio and Musical Theatre) can now be performed in any key, and the sight-reading requirements have had a significant update; more on that later.