Early in 2020, we began rehearsing for the world premiere of a new opera commissioned from Jonathan Dove and poet Ian McMillan, The Tin Soldier, scheduled for the autumn. We also rehearsed Mendelssohn’s Elijah for a planned concert in Leeds Town Hall which could not take place because of the Pandemic, which was becoming increasingly threatening. The first lockdown was announced in March, and soon we were considering ways to keep in contact with each other at a time when singing in groups and choirs was particularly risky.
In April we received a Chorus newsletter headed STAY HOME, PROTECT THE NHS, which included encouraging messages from Simon Wright. From now on, we would use Zoom. Soon we were all in front of our screens at home. Individuals recorded their own voices wearing headphones to hear a backing track, then emailed the results to our accompanist and Assistant to the Artistic Adviser Rebecca Taylor, who revealed herself as a technical expert. We were soon watching our lockdown efforts on YouTube – Rachmaninov’s Bogoroditse Devo (part of his Vespers) and Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art. Weekly rehearsals also included special guests, 'pub' quizzes and other activities which were chronicled in a video by Rebecca Taylor here.
Live singing resumed in the summer of 2021. In October we were at the Barbican in A Night at the Opera, with a programme of well-known extracts, along with the York Guildhall Orchestra, and in November we marked the temporary closure of Leeds Town Hall for Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, the ‘Resurrection Symphony’. Accompanied by the Orchestra of Opera North, we sang with the Chorus of Opera North, and Leeds Philharmonic Chorus. The annual Christmas concert was again in St Edmund’s.
A collaboration with Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, which had been mooted for quite a while, finally took place in April 2022. We travelled to stay in Winchester in order to take part in intensive rehearsals of Richard Blackford’s Pietá along with our new colleagues. The work was commissioned by Bournemouth, and is a setting of the Stabat Mater. World-renowned tenor Jonas Kaufmann wrote of Pietà:
The concert took place in a packed Winchester Cathedral.
In May, our concert at St Edmund’s featured works by Beamish, Tallis, Macmillan, Elgar, Hadley, Wesley, Stanford and Finzi. In October, we were at the Barbican with the York Guildhall Orchestra for a programme of popular orchestral and choral music which included Lambert’s difficult masterpiece, his cantata The Rio Grande, and in December we were back at St Edmund’s for our Christmas concert, which on this occasion had a programme which included readings from the work of authors like Dylan Thomas and a much-applauded appearance of Chorister of the Year Naomi Simon.
2023
In our February 2023 concert in the Barbican, we performed with the York Guildhall Orchestra, conducted by Simon Wright, with an all-Beethoven programme. This included the Choral Symphony and the cantata Meeres Stille und Glückliche Fahrt, the composer’s setting of two poems by Goethe.
Our May concert at St Edmunds, Roundhay was Summer Wishes. It was a celebration of the best of British choral music, with works by Elgar, Stanford and Macmillan, conducted by Simon Wright with Rebecca Taylor on organ. The Icelandic baritone soloist, Andri Bjórn Róbertsson made his first appearance with us. We also sang two Catalan songs composed by our patron Roderick Williams, which we were to perform on our Spanish tour a year later.
Soon afterwards, in June, we travelled to Sheffield. Following the previous year’s successful collaboration with Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, we joined Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus again – and the Hallé – to present Verdi’s Requiem in the City Hall. The massed choirs produced a powerful and deeply felt season finale. The general opinion in the Chorus was that we would be well prepared for singing the same piece in Glasgow the following November. The conductor was Sofi Jeannin, with soloists Claire Rutter (soprano), Rosie Aldridge (mezzo-soprano), Sam Furness (tenor) and David Shipley (bass).
We participated in a Come and Sing event in Leeds Minster in September with Fauré’s Requiem, conducted by Rebecca Taylor, sufficiently well-known and popular to attract plenty of non-members who might want to join us. This did indeed happen – a significant number of new members signed up. In October, our Best of Brahms concert took place at St Edmunds. Two of the composer’s masterpieces were at its centre, his enchanting Liebeslieder waltzes and his haunting German Requiem. Conductor was Simon Wright, with Rebecca Taylor and Anthony Kraus on piano.
In November we travelled to Glasgow to join with our friends in the City of Glasgow Chorus for a performance in the Royal Concert Hall of Verdi’s Requiem conducted by the Glasgow Chorus’s Musical Director, Paul Keohone. The orchestra was that of Scottish Opera. Soloists were Elena Xanthoudakis (soprano), Cheryl Forbes (alto), Charne Rochford (tenor) and David Stout (baritone). The visit involved an overnight stay, for most members at the Ibis Hotel in Sauchiehall Street. The effect of about two hundred singers singing this ‘ecclesiastically operatic’ piece was overwhelmingly powerful. Our Glasgow friends had joined us at Leeds Town Hall in November 2018 for Britten’s War Requiem.
The Christmas concert in December at St Edmunds included Joubert’s Torches, Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens, Sterndale-Bennett’s The Carol Singers and a series of readings of seasonal prose and poetry by members of the Chorus. Conductor was Simon Wright.
2024
Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht was the main item in the first concert of 2024 in February with York Guildhall Orchestra in the Barbican. This was supplemented by Parry’s Blest Pair of Sirens and Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma). Conductor was Simon Wright, with Sarah Winn (mezzo-soprano), Henry Strutt (tenor) and Samuel Snowden (baritone). In May at St Edmunds, we performed Rossini’s Petite Messe Solonnelle, conducted by Simon Wright, who told us that he had found the requirements that the composer had written at the start of the original score:
Rebecca Taylor was on piano, and Ben de Souza made an impressive contribution on the accordion. He is currently Musical Director of Farnham & Bourne Choral Society and a tireless advocate for his chosen instrument. Soloists were Pasquale Orchard (soprano), Beth Moxon (mezzo-soprano), Tom Smith (tenor) and Edmund Danon (baritone).
For those able to participate, the much-anticipated week-long Spanish Tour, which took place in late May, was a wonderful experience, with opportunities to sing in ancient buildings, connect with discerning Spanish music lovers and take part in an extensive tour of a winery. We flew to Madrid, or reached the city by train, then travelled everywhere by coach. Some of us tried with varying degrees of success to use our knowledge of the language, either by reviving distant memories of lessons at school or by employing what we learned in sessions back in Leeds with tutor Emma Slater. All our free concerts in the gothic cathedrals of Burgos, Valladolid and Salamanca had large, enthusiastic audiences which stood in tribute to us. Our programme of sacred music was slightly different for each venue, but always included the Catalan songs and ended with Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. Thorough rehearsals with Simon Wright were occasionally a little chilly as we stood under golden altar screens and medieval stonework, but they paid off beautifully. Rebecca Taylor was a terrific organist throughout, dealing skilfully with sometimes tricky cathedral organs.
In September, selected choruses from Mendelssohn’s Elijah formed the programme for our Come and Sing event in the Tiled Hall next to Leeds City Art Gallery. Several of the guest singers decided to join us. In October, we travelled to Beverley for a concert in the Minster. This was entitled A Choral Soiree, and was an evening of French sacred music, in Latin. The main piece was Duruflé’s beautiful Requiem, complemented by stunning music from Poulenc and Messiaen. Simon Wright conducted, with Rebecca Taylor on organ. Soloists were Kathryn Sharpe (mezzo-soprano), Christopher Nairne (baritone) and Sally Ladds (cello). The Minster was very cold, but we did not mind too much because we had been advised to wear thermal underwear – black of course.
