Tag Archives: Birmingham Festival Choral Society

Birmingham Choirs, Birmingham Music, Birmingham What's On, Oratorio prize, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

BFCS Oratorio Prize competition.

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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.

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Birmingham Choirs, Birmingham Festival Choral Society, Choirs in Birmingham, Join a choir, news, Open rehearsal, Taster session

Join a choir!

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Singing in a choir brings many benefits for body and mind, as Birmingham Festival Choral Society singers will confirm. We all look forward to singing on a Wednesday evening – and the feeling after giving a concert is tremendous! Added to that, it’s a great place to make friends, through sharing Wednesday rehearsals, weekend workshops and tours abroad.

Would you like to give us a try? Come along to our Open Rehearsal on Wednesday 6th September, where you will find a friendly welcome. If you come at 7pm there will be enough time to meet you and introduce you to a singing buddy who can guide you through the rehearsal. This is a ‘taster session’ to see if you feel this is the choir for you – there is no obligation.

If you’re not able to make it to the Open Rehearsal, you will still be welcome at any of our other Wednesday rehearsals.

Click to find out more about joining our choir.

Watch our video to see why we love Birmingham Festival Choral Society!

Birmingham Choirs, Birmingham Festival Choral Society, Birmingham History, Birmingham Triennial Festival, Choirs in Birmingham, news

Anniversaries and premieres.

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Birmingham Festival Choral Society celebrates its 175th anniversary this year! Our choir was formed to provide the chorus for the Birmingham Triennial Festivals (hence the ‘Festival’ in our name), and gave its first concert in 1845. It sang at all the Triennial Festivals until they came to an end in 1912.

One of the highlights of singing in the Festivals was the premiere of Elijah in 1846, conducted by Mendelssohn himself in the new Birmingham Town Hall. The audience loved the work, and it is still much loved by choral societies and audiences today.

Birmingham Town Hall 1834

Click here for a newly published account of the premiere of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, written by Robert Hugill in his Classical Music Blog. The premiere of Elijah also features in this recent blog from the Library of Birmingham’s Music Librarian, as well as the information about another of the premieres from the Festivals – Elgar’s Dream of Gerontious. Both of these works are now firmly established in the choral repertoire.