Singing in Tewkesbury Abbey in our ‘Faire is the Heaven’ concert.
Tickets are now on sale for our Centenary concert at Symphony Hall on 6th November! A wonderful programme of works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, perfect for a Sunday afternoon. The choral highlight is the outstanding A Sea Symphony.
We are also selling tickets for Handel’s Messiah in Symphony Hall on Friday 9th December.
Click the links on the website to get more information and to book tickets.
Come to Tewkesbury Abbey on Saturday 11th June for a wonderful evening of choral and orchestral music.
Travel through time from the 16th to the 20th centuries, bathing in the glorious sounds of William Byrd, Thomas Weelkes, Claudio Monteverdi, Handel, Mendelssohn, Holst and William Harris. Harris’s pair of wonderful anthems, Faire is the Heaven and Bring Us, O Lord God form the centrepiece.
With fine soloists and our friends, the Westminster Chamber Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Choir are so looking forward to this concert at our favourite out-of-town venue.
TICKETS can be bought online via Ticketsource or on the door (e.g. if the online site stops selling a few hours before the concert, don’t worry – you can buy tickets when you arrive).
We do so hope you can be there.
We recently held a hugely enjoyable event with three local schools, Voice Factory Commonwealth – continuing our long-standing Voice Factory outreach programme as part of our centenary education project. Linked to the Commonwealth Games, we had three partner schools, each hosting a musician – African drumming, Bhangra dancing and Gospel singing. We also joined forces with the schools to perform John Barber’s The Rain Queen, which we premiered in 2015.
Now we are looking forward to our concert in Tewkesbury Abbey on 11th June, Faire is the Heaven. Click HERE for more information and tickets.
Would you like to buy our engaging and colourful Centenary Book? Click HERE for details.
As we start rehearsing after our Christmas break, having given five live concerts in the autumn of 2021 as part of our Centenary celebrations, we will be rehearsing and learning through workshops. We will continue our education project with another group of schools, leading to a sharing performance in March. Looking further ahead, we will give a concert in Tewkesbury Abbey on Saturday 11th June – details to follow.
Would you like to buy our engaging and colourful Centenary Book? Click here for details.
After the 100th autumn of the City of Birmingham Choir, celebrating our centenary with five live concerts in Town Hall and Symphony Hall, we take a short break over Christmas. Continuing to take great care to stay safe from COVID, we start rehearsals again on 4th January 2022. Maybe you are a singer and would like to join us?
Meanwhile, every best wish from us to you for a healthy and peaceful Christmas and new year.
Our Christmas Treats CD
This is our Centenary Year. The choir’s first concert took place on 28th November 1921. Our third concert, on 18th December 1921 in Town Hall, was our first performance of Messiah. Subsequent performances of Messiah took place in 1935 and 1936 and then, from 1943, it was sung between one and three times every year until now. The only exception was in 2020 (owing to COVID-19 restrictions). How delighted we are to be back again this year!
Please book tickets via this LINK or by visiting the B:Music box office online or in person.
This 28th November at 2.30 pm, 100 years to the day, in the Town Hall, join us for MESSIAH – The Inside View: A fun-filled family event where you can get to know Handel’s masterpiece in an easy and accessible way. Cameras and a big screen will let you see what the orchestra and players are up to. Tickets are just £5 and there’s even a family ticket for £15.
Here is the programme from the very first concert of the City of Birmingham Choir, 28th November 1921, given in the Town Hall.
Tonight, we webcast the Haydn@Home recordings of Haydn’s Nelson Mass which we recorded remotely in the autumn, preceded by a discussion between Conductor Adrian Lucas and Accompanist Colin Baines, and followed by a group of members talking about their experiences of being in the choir (ranging from 1 year to 50 years).
After this, members joined a Zoom Social to raise a glass or two to the choir.
Today (21st March) marks the 100th Anniversary of the first rehearsal of the then brand new City of Birmingham Choir on 21st March 1921.
On the 21st of March 1921, the newly formed City of Birmingham Choir gathered for the first time under the watchful eye of Director of Music Appleby Matthews to begin rehearsals of Rutland Boughton’s nativity opera ‘Bethlehem’. 100 years on, we cannot be together in person, but we will be marking the occasion with a stream of our Haydn@Home performance. Please join us Sunday evening 21st March just before 7pm on Facebook.
https://fb.me/e/1lpZh9dNy
The start of the 1920’s was a milestone in Birmingham’s musical history when, in 1920 the City of Birmingham Orchestra (later the CBSO) gave their very first concert conducted by Sir Edward Elgar. Then, in 1921 the City of Birmingham Choir was formed to perform choral concerts with the orchestra as well as pursuing their own programme. 100 years later, both organisations are still going strong, despite having their relative centenaries disrupted by a global pandemic! How history repeats itself….
