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, 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 40th 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.
St Nicolas’ Church, Guildford. Saturday, 13th November 2021 at 7.30pm
“Songs of Renewal”
A concert focusing on renewal, culminating in Parry’s joyful ‘Blest Pair of Sirens’. The programme includes Palestrina’s ‘Missa Aterna Christi Munera’, with works by J.S. Bach, Brahms and John Bawden. It also features the first performance of a commission especially written for the choir’s 40th Anniversary – ‘Come, Sleep’ by Helen Williams.
In support of
Cherry Trees
Cherry Trees children’s charity supports families with a child with a disability or learning difficulties through the provision of short breaks and respite visits.
When a child comes to Cherry Trees their parents can rest assured they are well take care of, thanks to the experienced supervision of caring staff, healthy home cooked food and activities and outings to join in with. Through the availability of respite visits we can help families feel supported and able to cope with the ongoing daily care needs of their child and most critically prevent family break up. When Cherry Trees steps in for a few hours caring for a child after school, overnight or where possible with longer stays, parents and carers can find their own time to have a break from caring too.
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
Data Protection and Retention Policy
Keeping data safe and secure is important to us and we are committed to the changes introduced by the European data protection law known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which goes into effect on 25 May 2018.To learn about data privacy and how we process personal data, please view our Data Protection and Retention Policy.