Our 50th annivesary concert March 2024
We were founded in 1974 and now have well over 100 members. Our weekly rehearsals are friendly and informal.
We are a registered charity whose aim is to 'prepare music for performance and . . . to educate . . . through the presentation of a series of concerts throughout the season'. Put less formally: we all have a common love of choral singing and our objective is simple - to sing and learn together and to make good music!
We are a community choir and strive for high standards of performance. No audition is required to become a member, but the ability to sight-read is useful.
Our Music Director is John Dunford, of whom David Denton said in the Yorkshire Post, "Dunford has that type of character that persuades people to do things they never dreamed possible and to perform as if their lives depended upon it."
What do we sing?
Under the enthusiastic direction of John Dunford, we have covered a wide range of music encompassing most familiar choral works - and some not so often heard. From Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 to Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man, via works by, among many others, Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Fauré, Rossini, Schubert, Finzi, Puccini, Orff, John Rutter, and, of course, Handel.
We aim to put on four major concerts a year, normally at our home venue of St James' Church, Wetherby (by kind permission of the Priest-in-Charge and church wardens).
We occasionally perform at other venues, including Leeds Town Hall and Ripon Cathedral, and from time to time we join with other choirs to tackle major works such as Verdi's Requiem and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius.
