A message from our Chair
Diana Thrush
A very warm welcome to Guildford Chamber Choir website in this our 41st year. What a momentous year our 40th Anniversary proved to be! We had planned a full season of music and celebration to mark the occasion, but the inevitable restrictions arising from the Coronavirus pandemic prevented most of it from going ahead: our Birthday concert in June with a party for choir and audience afterwards; plans for an October tour to Freiburg; and the November 2020 concert in Holy Trinity Church. Thankfully, we were able to perform Bach’s sublime St Matthew Passion just before the first lockdown in March.
The choir spirit has been kept alive by whatever means we could manage. These included preparing a virtual video recording of two pieces for our 40th Birthday, organising small group meetings to sing in the open air throughout the glorious summer months, recording a Family Eucharist for Guildford Cathedral streamed in September and, more recently, holding Zoom singing sessions with ingenious ‘pub quizzes’ afterwards.
Now we are at last able to plan for the future, cautiously of course, and with the safety of our audience and singers uppermost in our minds. Our return to live performance is planned for Saturday, June 26th at Guildford’s United Reformed Church where we first performed 41 years ago. We will celebrate our belated 40th birthday with music by Britten, Vaughan Williams and Shearing, accompanied by our Patron and last Principal Conductor, Steven Grahl.
As one of the choir’s original Founder Members, four of whom still sing with the choir, I am delighted to be in the Chair at such a significant time. It’s hard to believe that more than forty years have passed since seventeen singers performed at our Inaugural concert in the United Reformed Church. We have grown in number since then, but our joy in singing and socialising together has remained just as strong.
Heartfelt thanks are due to our co-founders, Richard Fox and John Bawden, and to the many people who continue to support us, amongst them the Patrons and Friends of GCC. But no concert, whether live or virtual, would be complete without an audience. We have been lucky indeed to be blessed with a following of loyal and enthusiastic music lovers. We look forward very much to seeing you again very soon.
Saturday 26th June 2021
A Serenade to Music
Tickets
£13 (in advance)
£16 (on the door)
Under 25s free
We will be supporting Guildford Street Angels at our June concert.
Street Angels are volunteers who believe that people deserve care and love in their time of need. Being non-judgmental underpins everything a Street Angel does.
Please visit their website for more information.
Guildford Chamber Choir was founded in 1980 with the express aim of performing choral music of the finest quality from the 16th century to the present day. Over the years the choir has remained loyal to this aim, gaining an enviable reputation both for the high standard of its singing and for performing varied and often unusual repertoire. As well as being at the forefront of Guildford music-making, the Guildford Chamber Choir’s reputation has stretched beyond the town and county boundaries. More about the choir....
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Honorary Patrons
Mr & Mrs Michael More-Molyneux
Steven Grahl
Peter Wright
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