Concert and Workshop Information
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For choir season start dates, click here
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The 2018/2019 Registration Form, download
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November 2018 Concert Flyer, view/download
OR, we could use icons as below -
Saturday 6th October 2018
Workshop -
Singing as the Sussex Festival Choir
John Joubert – St. Mark Passion
The Barn, Causeway, Horsham 10.30 – 17.00
Saturday 17th November 2018
Concert -
'Come and Sing' - A Celebration of Mozart
Eine kleine Nachtmusik K525
Laudate Dominum from Vesperae solennes de confessore K339
Clarinet Concerto in A major K622 - Soloist - Peter Cigleris
Requiem in D minor K626
St Mary’s Parish Church, Causeway, Horsham 7.30 pm
Please note: for the 'Come and Sing', there are limited places on the day,
for singers outside of the choir, and these will be on a 'first come first served'
basis through prior registration and fee payment.
Saturday 8th December 2018
Carol Concert -
in aid of Charity 'Springboard'
St Mark’s Church, North Heath Lane, Horsham 7.30 pm
Saturday 27th April 2019
Concert -
A 'Last Night of the Proms' celebration to mark
the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Sir Henry Wood
with music by Handel, Parry, Elgar and Vivaldi
St Mary’s Parish Church, Causeway, Horsham 7.30 pm
Saturday 16th November 2019
Concert -
Ola Gjeilo – Serenity (O Magnum Mysterium)
Morten Lauridsen – Nocturns
Sergie Rachmaninov – Borgoroditse from his Vespers
Luigi Cherubini - Requiem
St Mary’s Parish Church, Causeway, Horsham 7.30 pm
Saturday 25th April 2020
Concert -
Handel - Messiah
St Mary’s Parish Church, Causeway, Horsham 7.30 pm
Saturday 21st November 2020
Concert -
Brahms – Ein Deutches Requiem
Fauré – Cantique de Jean Racine
St Mary’s Parish Church, Causeway, Horsham 7.30 pm
Tickets (Horsham concerts only): £14 (£10 for the Carol Concert) on the door
and in advance from Horsham Piano Centre, Waterstones, The Candy Box
or from Choir members
Programmes subject to change without notice.
About the West Sussex Philharmonic Choir (WSPC)
We are now in our 41st season, and currently have about 80 singers drawn from the Horsham area.
Our season runs from September to April. In November and April, we perform two concerts at St. Mary’s Parish Church, Horsham.
Additionally, in December, we perform a concert in St. Mark’s Church, Horsham. This features carols and Christmas music and is in aid of a local charity.
Professional musicians – both soloists and orchestral players - support our concerts. The orchestral players make up the 'Sinfonia da Chiesa', and we are all under the baton of our Music Director, Stephen Hope, who founded the Sussex Festival Choir.
Rehearsals are held in 'The Barn', Causeway, Horsham, on Tuesday evenings from 8.00 - 10.00pm, and new members in all voices are always welcome.
We sing a full range of classic choral music from Henry Purcell to Gabriel Fauré, plus music from contemporary composers such as John Rutter, Karl Jenkins, Philip Ledger and Bob Chilcott, and encourage all singers to embrace a wider range of singing ability!
President:
Patrick McGuinness-Smith
Vice Presidents:
Gilly Smith, Liz Yeats, David Stoner, Beth Johnson, Duncan Smeaton
The West Sussex Philharmonic Choir is a registered charity. Number 276763
Links
Horsham Music Circle website
Music Director
Stephen Hope
After attending Canterbury Cathedral Choir School and the King's School, Stephen continued his musical training as an organ scholar at Bristol University where he specialised in keyboard performance and conducting.
His award of a coveted Fellowship to the Conductors' Institute of America led to study under the likes of Morton Gould and Lukas Foss.
He has worked extensively both as pianist and conductor with a number of societies and orchestras. these include the English National Orchestra, English Northern Philharmonia, London City Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre and The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the USA.
He has worked with many international artists including Jack Brymer, Dame Felicity Lott, Dame Ann Murray, Sir Willard White, Dame Emma Kirkby, Neil Jenkins, James Bowman and David Wilson-Johnson.
Stephen's work in the theatre saw him conduct highly acclaimed performances of Nabucco, Masked Ball, Carmen and Turandot with Bel Canto Festival Opera during his four years as their Music Director.
He regularly engages orchestras and artists for shows and concerts and has broadcast on Classic FM and LBC. He maintains a parallel career as organist in his posts as Director of Music at St. John's, Belmont and the Streatham Liberal Synagogue. He is also a member of the music staff of Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom.
He is Music Director for the West Sussex PhilharmonicChoir (WSPC) and Basildon Choral Society (BCS).
In 2002 Stephen formed his own orchestra, Sinfonia da Chiesa and founded the Sussex Festival Choir (SFC) the following year. The SFC is primarily made up of singers from WSPC and BCS, with individual singers joining in from around Sussex and Surrey, forming a choir of some 180 singers.
Together they have performed a major choral work in Arundel Cathedral every year since, raising over £100,000 for St. Catherine’s and St. Wilfrid’s Hospices.
Recent highlights have included concerts with Sinfonia da Chiesa at Cadogan Hall, St John’s, Smith Square and Fairfield Halls, Croydon.
Other singing activities
Future Sussex Festival Choir Events
Also, see Sussex Festival Choir website
During the summer, members have the option of participating in the Sussex Festival Choir (SFC), to perform, in July, a major choral work with full orchestra, in support of the Hospice movement.
Visits every other year to Europe have become a feature of early summer activities for SFC.
The SFC has given concerts in Bruges, Florence, Rome, Venice, Barcelona, Krakow, Salzburg, and Bologna.
Short reports of the visits can be seen here:
(each opens as .pdf file 500KB)
A brief tour to Bruges took place in 2016 and a full week's visit to Prague took place in 2018.
Members also have the opportunity twice a year of joining residency week-ends at cathedrals in the South of England. Recent visits have included Bath Abbey, Canterbury, Chichester, Hereford, Norwich, St. Albans, Wells, Salisbury, Winchester and Peterborough.
Join us
Membership
The choir is always pleased to welcome new members in all voices. Experience is a help, but is by no means compulsory.
The season commences in September and continues until the following April. At this point preparation for any planned tour and Sussex Festival Choir activity takes over until the end of July.
The cost for the 2018/2019 season is £120.00 for the full season – or £65 per half season. Students in full time education pay £10.00 per half season.
Rehearsals
These take place weekly on Tuesday evenings between 8.00 and 10.00pm at The Barn in The Causeway, Horsham.
They are hard working sessions but sociable as well, where members enjoy their singing and have fun at the same time.
Future season practice start dates for 2018/2019:
Tuesday 8th January 2019
as WSPC, for our concert in April.
Tuesday 3rd September 2019
as WSPC, for our concert in November.
Contact us
For further information about joining,
contact our Membership Secretary, Suzanne Gates - tel 01403 730785 or email suzanne.gates@btopenworld.com
or Chairman, Tony Summerfield - tel 01403 730239 or email anthonysummerfield@btinternet.com
Support our choir
─ without singing a note
We strive to maintain high musical standards and this means that staging a concert is a costly business.
Patrons
Individual music lovers can help the choir financially by becoming patrons. For £60 annual payment in advance, a patron receives two complimentary tickets for each of our two main concerts – four tickets altogether.
Current Patrons:
Mr O Farley, Mr I Jepps, Mrs C King - Life Patron, Mr P Westrip
Friends of the Choir
Option 1 - For an annual donation of £10, Friends receive one free interval drink per concert.
Option 2 - For an annual donation of £50, Friends receive one free ticket for each WSPC concert (excluding the charity carol concert) and one free interval drink per concert.
Current Friends:
Mr J Stewart
Sponsors
Individuals may support the choir by sponsoring a soloist or an instrumentalist for a contribution usually up to £150
For as little as £25 a half-page black & white advertisement can be displayed in our programme.
We run a regular feature entitled Phil’s Dining Club. By taking a full page advert, a restaurant can feature a full-page editorial about their specialities, times of opening etc, and on the facing page, their advert. Thus, two full-pages for only £75.
Patrons, Friends and Sponsors are acknowledged in the concert programmes.
For more information about becoming a Patron, Friend or Sponsor, please email our Supporters Liaison Secretary – Duncanbsmeaton@aol.co.uk
The West Sussex Philharmonic Choir is a registered charity number 276763
History
The choir was formed in 1978 with the expressed aim “to provide a platform for those who want to sing in a larger choral group than a chamber or church choir; and, by being a larger group, to embrace a wider range of abilities.”
With this ethos, the choir was launched by two musical amateurs, both now sadly deceased. A local GP, Dr John Dew, was the first Chairman; and a bank manager, Laurie Carcas – no mean viola player himself – undertook the musical direction.
The inaugural concert at Christ’s Hospital School was a resounding success.
Early Days
At the outset concerts were accompanied by an orchestra largely consisting of amateur players, but featured professional vocal soloists.
Over the years several rising stars have performed with the choir. Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Evelyn Tubb and Jane Eaglin are three vocalists who went on to attain international recognition.
Development
In the mid 80’s it was decided that there should be a professional Music Director; we now have the services of Stephen Hope, under whose persuasive baton the choir thrives. His orchestra - the Sinfonia da Chiesa - is composed entirely of professional musicians.
The choir has had three Music Directors –
1978 – 1985 Laurie Carcas : Trevor Hoskins – deputy
1985 – 2002 Robin Page : Matthew Taylor – deputy
2002 – present Stephen Hope.
Repertoire
The range of music presented is wide. Major choral works such as Brahms German Requiem, Bach Mass in B minor and Beethoven Missa Solemnis have been performed, as well as many works by Mozart, Schubert, Haydn and Dvorak.
English composers have not been overlooked with Britten, Rutter, and Elgar featured in our programmes. 20th century works such as Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky and Kodaly Psalmus Hungaricus have also been performed. The music of George Gershwin and his contemporaries formed the basis of one memorable concert.
View the repertoire of the choir (opens as .pdf file 60KB)
Concert venues
Early concerts were held at Christ’s Hospital School but in pursuit of a more central venue, the Arts Centre theatre (now the Capitol) was chosen. Since the theatre’s rebuild, most concerts now take place at St.Mary’s Parish Church in Horsham’s Causeway.
Three early photographs (opens as .pdf file 300KB)
The choir has also performed in Symphony Hall, Birmingham; Guildford and Arundel Cathedrals; The Hawth, Crawley and The Fairfield Halls, Croydon - not to mention many venues on overseas tours.
See reports on previous tours -
Krakow 2011 -- Salzburg 2013 -- Italy 2015
(all open as .pdf files approx. 500KB)
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