A message from our Chair

Diana Thrush

A very warm welcome to Guildford Chamber Choir website in this our 41^st year. What a momentous year our 40^th 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, musicians and singers uppermost in our minds. Thanks to advice based on DCMS guidance from professional bodies such as Making Music and the Association if British Choral Directors, we were able to celebrate our belated 40^th birthday on June 26th in Guildford's United Reformed church, the very place where we performed our first concert 41 years ago.

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. 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.

Look at our special collection of photos and documents dedicated to the Choir's 40th Anniversary

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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Principal Conductor

Max Barley

Honorary Patrons

Mr & Mrs Michael More-Molyneux

Steven Grahl

Peter Wright

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