The first rehearsal of term is always an Open Rehearsal and Wednesday 7th January is no exception. Come along to Selly Oak Methodist Church B29 6HT at about 7pm, where you will receive a friendly welcome. Experience a rehearsal with us, and see if our choir feels right for you. More details can be found on our ‘Join our Choir’ webpage.
This term we will be rehearsing Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony for performance in Leamington Spa on 21st March. What a treat!
Sun 14th December 2025 4:30PM
Join us for an hour of joyful Christmas music, followed by seasonal refreshments!
The carols and Christmas songs will be sung by the Birmingham Festival Choral Society (music director David Wynne) and the Bournville Village Primary School Choir (conductor Rachael Stidwill). Our organist/pianist is Kevin Gill.
It is even rumoured that Father Christmas might make an appearance!
A speaker from the charity ‘Helping Hands of Birmingham’, will tell us about their work amongst homeless people in Birmingham, and we will all have a chance to make donations at the end of the concert.
Click here to see the full programme
St John’s and St Peter’s Church,
Birmingham, B16 8TF
Birmingham Festival Choral Society will be joining Coventry Philharmonic Choir and Atherstone Choral Society to perform Elgar’s magnificent choral setting of John Henry Newman’s poem, the Dream of Gerontius. We will be accompanied by the Leamington Chamber Orchestra.
The concert will take place at All Saints’ Church, Leamington Spa, on Saturday 12th April 2025, 7.30pm, and will be preceded at 7pm by a talk by David McLoughlin, Emeritus Fellow, Birmingham Newman University.
Birmingham Festival Choral Society (celebrating its 180th Anniversary)
Atherstone Choral Society
Coventry Philharmonic Choir
Leamington Chamber Orchestra
David Wynne – conductor
Louise Crane – Mezzo soprano
Tom Raskin – Tenor
Matthew Nuttall – Baritone
This 2025 performance of Dream of Gerontius will, of course, be very well prepared and performed to a high standard. The premiere in 1900 was the complete opposite! An interesting history of the background to the composition of the poem by John Henry Newman, the commissioning of Elgar to write the work for the Birmingham Festival and the first performance can be found here on the Birmingham City Council website.
We recommend that you buy your tickets soon, as this is proving to be a very popular concert and the large number of performers means that seating is limited.
St John’s and St Peter’s Church, Birmingham, B16 8TF
 Sunday 8th December 2024, 4.30pm
Come to our concert of Christmas music, carols and Christmas refreshments. We are also expecting a visit from a certain Christmas gentleman!
Birmingham Festival Choral Society will be joined by the choir of
Bournville Village Primary School, directed by Rachael Stidwell.
Kevin Gill will be accompanying from both the piano and organ, and David Wynne is the Music Director.
A collection will be taken for St Basils, the charity helping young people find and keep a home. This charity was chosen by the Bournville Village Primary School choir.
On Sunday 14th July we gathered together in the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre for an wonderful afternoon of opera music. The choir sang a wide variety of opera choruses, from baroque composers Handel and Purcell, to Verdi and Wagner. Verdi’s Anvil chorus and Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves were particular favourites.
We had really enjoyed leaning these wonderful melodies over the past term – and the struggles of learning words in Russian, French, Italian and German finally seemed worthwhile. We all enjoyed being opera singers for an afternoon!
Click to expand any photo
One of the special delights of this concert was that it featured Ellen Smith, the 2023 prize winner of the BFCS Oratorio Competition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Part of the prize was a booking to sing at a BFCS concert, and this concert gave the perfect opportunity to showcase her wonderful skills in singing operatic works from composers such as Bizet, Handel and Walton.
The second soloist, Abigail Baylis, had also been a finalist in the Oratorio Competition, reminding us how high the standard was in that final. Her solos ranged from the pathos of Purcell’s Dido’s Lament to a fearsome bridezilla in It’s my wedding by Jonathan Dove.
Ellen and Abigail sang the Sull’aria duet from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and the beautiful Flower duet from Lakmé by Delibes – a highlight for many.
(nb Ellen is on the right and Abigail on the left of the photos.)
The audience was treated to a surprise when one of our basses, Jason Schaub, whipped out a gold patterned jacket and came forward to sing the wonderful Tchaikovsky aria Vy tak pechalny, from Pique Dame! Jason also sang Verdi’s Alzati eri tu macchiavi in the second half. Very few of the singers had realised what a wonderful talent we have amongst us – Jason had been a professional musician and singer before taking up his academic career at the University of Birmingham.
In contrast, the talent of our accompanist , Kevin Gill, is well known to our singers and audience. Kevin can turn his hand to whatever style of music we perform – whether it be traditional choral masses and requiems, choral jazz or opera. While the choir took a rest to listen to the solos, Kevin was accompanying every single item in the concert to his usual high standard.
Another person who didn’t have a chance to take a break was our Music Director, David Wynne, who was conducting the whole concert. He also introduced all the items, and you can see from the expressions of the choir that there was plenty of humour!
The tenors and basses had their chance to shine in The Soldier’s Chorus from Gounod’s Faust, and the Priest’s Chorus from The Magic Flute by Mozart. Nick Lampert and Jason Schaub (basses) and James Bullin (tenor) also had short solos in the Waltz Scene from Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky.
The sopranos and altos had to change demeanor from being peasant girls to witches in their two choruses! They sang The chorus of the Peasant Girls, from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Verdi’s Witches Chorus from Macbeth.
The final applause came and flowers were distributed to all the performers – but then an encore! A semichorus stepped forward from the choir, to be joined by Abigail and Ellen, and we sang the magnificent rousing Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni.
An E mail from an audience member who had travelled from London for the concert said “…soloists and choir were terrific and the Mascagni encore was even more thrilling, in my book, than the version I heard a few months ago at Covent Garden”.
What an ending to a wonderful concert!
Many thanks to Alfred White who took all of the photographs, except for the three otherwise labelled.
The second Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Oratorio competition, sponsored by Birmingham Festival Choral Society, took place on Monday evening, 30th October 2024. The six finalists treated the audience in the recital hall of the conservatoire to an evening of performances of the highest standard, singing music written by composers ranging from Bach and Handel to Durufle and Joubert.
BFCS’s big claim to fame is that we were the choir that performed the premiere of Elijah in 1846, so it was particularly good to hear three solos from that popular oratorio.
Ellen Smith, mezzo-soprano, was placed first, winning a financial prize, a trophy and a future engagement with BFCS. Ellen’s programme consisted of Es ist vollbract , from Bach’s St John Passion, Yet can I hear that dulcet lay, from the Choice of Hercules by Handel, and Pie Jesu from Durufle’s Requiem.
Second prize went to baritone Oliver Barker, who sang Lord God of Abraham from Mendelssohn’s Elijah, The Man he killed from the South of the line by John Joubert and Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, from Handel’s Alexander’s Feast.
Tenor Joe Yates was placed Third, after singing Domine Deus from Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle, The enemy said, from Handel’s Israel in Egypt, Deposuit potentes from Bach’s Magnificat and finally If with all your hearts from Mendelssohn’s Elijah
Tenor Daniel Marles and sopranos Abigail Baylis and Gabriella Rea Fanyvesi also delighted the audience with arias by de Lalande, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Mendelssohn.
All 17 performances were expertly accompanied by Jonathan French on the piano.
The adjudicator for the Oratorio competition was our BFCS Music Director, David Wynne. Many in the audience were glad that they were not in David’s shoes, as it was so difficult to chose between the singers! Tracy Piotrowska , BFCS Vice-Chair made the presentations.
Congratulations to all the singers for such great performances. We’ll enjoy following their future careers in music. We particularly look forward to working with Ellen when she takes up her prize as the soprano soloist at one of our future concerts.
Postscript May 2024: Ellen Smith and Abigail Baylis were the soloists at our ‘Opera in the Afternoon’ concert on Sunday 14th July 2024.
Come and listen to Birmingham Festival Choral Society sing choral music with a Jazz and Blues theme! Gorgeous harmonies and toe-tapping rhythms.
We will be singing with a jazz trio consisting of Kevin Gill on piano, Andy Derrick on double bass and Julian Powell on drums.
See our Concerts page for the full programme.
Drinks will be served at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre from 7pm. The concert starts at 7.30pm.
The competition for the second Birmingham Festival Choral Society Oratorio Prize, is to be held on Monday 30th October at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. The competition will take place between 7 and 8.45pm in the Recital Hall. You are invited to be in the audience to support the singers and enjoy this special event in the BFCS calendar!
Talented singers from the Conservatoire will compete for the prize which includes a trophy, a financial prize and a future engagement to sing the solo part at a Birmingham Festival Society Concert.
The winner of the 2022 Oratorio Prize was Baritone Jia Huang, and an account of that competition can be found here.
Directions to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire can be found here.
Birmingham Festival Choral Society is delighted to be joined by a constellation of musical stars to lift our performance of ‘The Creation’ to the heavens.
Alexandra Eve Wynne enjoys a busy freelance music career, singing regularly as an oratorio soloist. For BFCS, she stepped in at very short notice as soprano soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah last November. She joined the choir as soloist on their last tour to Romania in 2019, and is looking forward to doing so again in Germany in May 2023.
Alexandra is a dedicated teacher, holding posts at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Junior Department, King Edward VI Five Ways, and Elmhurst Ballet School (in association with Birmingham Royal Ballet). She is the founder of Choirs at Work Ltd, an award-winning company providing choral training for wellbeing and team building to organisations across the UK. As a choral director at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Junior Department, she works with the intermediate choir, for 8-14 year olds.
Dale Harris (tenor) has been freelance singing for 10 years and performing both at home and abroad, notably with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The most recent production, The Comedy of Errors, spanned the majority of 2021. Dale spends much of his remaining time performing in Opera and Operetta, including an array of Gilbert and Sullivan shows and recently in Mozart’s Magic Flute, La Traviatta (Gaston) and Puccini’s Tosca (Spoletta). His 2023, diary is filling fast, with Carmen, Don Giovanni, and Dvorak’s Stabat Mater of particular note.
Midlands-born baritone, Edward Robinson, has a passion for opera which has led to performances in a number of innovative productions during his career. He also has a busy schedule on the concert platform, singing as guest soloist in many choral works.
Over the last 5 years Edward has become increasingly sought after as a Vocal Animateur and Workshop Facilitator. Through his work with Pimlico Opera’s scheme “Primary Robins”, Edward delivers 16 sessions a week introducing opera, folk and musical theatre to inner city students from Manchester schools in areas of high deprivation. Edward has also led both primary and secondary projects for Leeds Lieder Festival, working alongside musicians and poets to present Art Song to new audiences. Alongside pianist Rachel Fright, he is an associate artist for the organisations Live Music Now and SoundUp Arts, leading performances and workshops at special schools as well as for people living with dementia across the North East.
Kevin Gill (chamber organ) is BFCS’s
regular accompanist. As well as running a private teaching practice he has frequently given organ recitals in and around Birmingham, as well as piano duet recitals.
Kevin has accompanied BFCS concerts in many churches, cathedrals and concert halls in Birmingham and the wider Midlands, and on tours of Belgium, Holland, Slovenia, Estonia, Slovakia, Ireland, Burgundy, and most recently Romania.
Kevin has accompanied various choral societies in a wide range of choral works, and in January 2008 was appointed Musical Director of Atherstone Choral Society.
David Wynne enjoys a hugely varied career as a freelance musician. As a conductor, David is Music Director of Birmingham Festival Choral Society, Coventry Philharmonic Society and Warwick and Kenilworth Choral Society.
David holds a masters degree in Vocal and Operatic performance from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and is a busy freelance baritone soloist. David is a visiting lecturer at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Junior Department teaching singing, conducting and musicianship, and is Choral Director of the senior chorus and the vocal ensemble.
David and his wife Alexandra co-founded the St Chad’s Cathedral Junior Choir and the extensive Choral Outreach Programme which sees them teaching choral singing to approximately 500 children a year across Birmingham.
Central England Camerata, founded by freelance violinist Anna Downes in 2013, has become one of the most sought-after chamber orchestras in the central region of the UK. It now works regularly with Hereford Cathedral Chamber Choir, Ledbury Choral Society, Derby Choral Union, Warwick and Kenilworth Choral Society, Birmingham Festival Choral Society, the Choirs of Southwell Minster, and Cantores Chamber Choir.
CEC is made up of professional musicians who freelance in many top orchestras. It has appeared at music festivals across the UK, touring with Andrew Downes’ Ballad of St Kenelm. In August 2017 CEC performed a series of film music concerts at Moseley’s Lord of the Rings Festival. In 2020/21, CEC made several professional recordings of the music of Andrew Downes: Festival Overture to St Cere, Toccata for Small Orchestra, Symphony no 6, and the Christmas Cantata. In August 2022, the orchestra recorded Downes’ brand new Violin Concerto with soloist Rupert Marshall-Luck, and the live première is planned for Spring 2024.
Christmas is coming! The Birmingham Festival Choral Society Christmas concert will be held on Sunday 4th December at St Anne’s Church, Park Hill, Moseley. Take note of the 4.30pm start time
Our main work is Wassail! Carols of Comfort and Joy by Alexander L’Estrange – a lovely medley of Christmas carols written for adult and children’s choirs, accompanied by a jazz/folk band.
Listen to the composer introducing the work:
Adult choir: Birmingham Festival Choral Society
Children’s Choir: Eversfield Preparatory School
Band:
Andy Derrick: Double Bass
Bethany Toulson: Recorder
Julian Powell: Percussion
Karen Street: Accordion
Kevin Gill: Piano and organ
There will also be carols for the audience to sing, Christmas music from the performers – and a visit from FATHER CHRISTMAS!
