Romsey Choral Society

Welcome to Romsey Choral Society

News

We are grateful to Derek Beck who has reviewed our recent concert in Romsey Abbey - you can read below some fabulous comments about the choir and the talented young soloists.

These singers are supported by the Josephine Baker Trust whose purpose is to promote the education and training of members of the public in singing and in the study of vocal music, and by helping talented singers in the early years of their singing careers.

For a Remembrance week-end Romsey Choral Society and its conductor Richard Pearce chose two apt and powerful works from the choral canon. Both suited the vocal forces - a choir of nearly 70 singers - and the ambience of Romsey Abbey and with an orchestra of strings, trumpets, timpani and organ no voices were overpowered by instruments. If anything, slightly fewer upper strings would have given the Chameleon Arts orchestra a cleaner sound, especially in the virtuosic lines of Haydn’s Nelson Mass.
The 1798 work opened in splendid fashion with the choir’s assertive unison octaves and throughout the piece (and the whole concert) the singers remained alert to the conductor’s well-paced directions. Clear consonants underpinned rhythmic precision and a good balance was achieved across the four parts of the choir. Dynamic contrasts were sharply underlined adding to the drama of the Mass.
The quartet of young soloists were here led by soprano Hannah Crocker who coped well with the ornate and wide-ranging solos if occasionally not perfectly synchronised with her accompanists. Her beautiful voice was the smallest of the quartet. Tenor Michael Bell and baritone Daniel Barret both have mature, rich vocal timbres used to fine effect in the Mass. Mezzo Annabel Kennedy had already impressed in her single solo in Durufle’s Requiem, the Pie Jesu. Hers is a firm, well focused voice and she was partnered by an outstanding cello solo in this item. Equally convincing in the 1947 piece were the solo contributions of Daniel Barret.
Durufle generates a curious mixture of ethereal plainsong-based ‘churchiness’ with brief splashes of Romantic colour in both the vocal and instrumental writing. Richard Pearce adopted very appropriate tempi to enhance the atmosphere in all this music as well as commanding the wonderful mood swings of Papa Haydn’s more extrovert church score. The whole performance was well received by a supportive audience.

Derek Beck, St Cross.

Christmas music - it's not too early!

We have been invited to participate in a concert on Wednesday 7th December 2022 in Romsey Abbey in support of the Honeypot charity which provides respite care for children who are carers.

Cynthia Swann, one of our members, volunteers with the Honeypot charity and the choir members have enthusiastically signed up to support this important event.

Tickets are available from: Honeypot's Christmas Carol Concert Hampshire | The Honeypot

You can find out more about Honeypot here:

Honeypot charity

And our own Romsey Choral Society Christmas concert will take place at the Chandlers Ford Methodist church on Sunday afternoon 11th December 2022 starting at 2.30pm.

We will be supporting the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance at this event.

Refreshments will be available in the interval.

Please click on "Next concert" for further details and how to buy tickets.

Romsey Choral Society

Welcome to Romsey Choral Society which is recognised as one of the best choirs in Southern England. Please have a look around this site to discover more about the choir. The season's repertoire is listed in the "Concerts" page. For our latest choir newsletter click here.

Rehearsals usually take place every Tuesday at 7.30pm at the Romsey Methodist Church, The Hundred, Romsey, SO51 8BZ .

We have now resumed rehearsals in the Romsey Methodist church and the covid restrictions have been significantly relaxed. However we remain completely committed to keeping all our members as safe as possible and request that all members follow these simple steps:

If you are unwell at all, please stay safely at home.
If you have been "pinged" or traced as a covid contact, please stay safely at home.
Please use face coverings if you feel more comfortable and we will continue to offer hand sanitiser as before.

The Committee continue to keep abreast of any guidance and are following all the steps required by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport together with risk management based on the Making Music templates.

Over the past year and a half, we have taken the required steps for any face to face rehearsals and for a concert performance without any adverse incidents.

Thank you to all the members who have followed instructions, been careful and kept us all safe.

Passionate about choral singing?
Then get in touch to discuss adding your voice to ours! Click the button to find out more.

Join Now

Want to hear us sing?

Click below to see and hear a short YouTube excerpt from Visions of Heaven - Saturday 28th March 2015

Hear an excerpt

Summer 2020 recording

Christmas 2020 recording

Subscribe

Click below to subscribe to our newsletter or to receive information about forthcoming concerts

Richard Pearce
RCS Musical Director

Richard Pearce has been Musical Director of Romsey Choral Society since 2019, and since then has enjoyed leading the choir in performances of works including Handel’s Messiah, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and Schubert’s Mass in G, working with the City of Southampton Orchestra and the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, and with our regular organist, Richard McVeigh.
He was organ scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. After graduating with first class honours in music, he studied piano accompaniment for two years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he developed his work with solo singers.
He is now a professor at the GSMD, coaching singers and instrumentalists for careers in opera and the concert platform, and is a trustee of the Josephine Baker Trust, which supports young soloists at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music in London.
Richard is busy as a conductor, pianist and organist with professional choirs. He records and broadcasts regularly with the BBC Singers, and particularly enjoys the challenge of preparing an extremely wide variety of repertoire, including contemporary and new music.
As organist and pianist he has performed with many of the UK’s best-known choral conductors, including David Hill, Stephen Cleobury, Paul Spicer, Bob Chilcott and Sofi Jeannin.
Richard has a long-standing association with the Royal Choral Society, and performs with them many times each year at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In addition he makes twice-yearly trips to Sweden to work with groups in the Stockholm and Malmö areas.
Richard is also Musical Director of the Waverley Singers, based in Farnham, Surrey.
Particular highlights with them have been concerts in Guildford Cathedral of Monteverdi Vespers, Verdi Requiem, Beethoven Mass in C, Brahms Schicksalslied, Mozart Requiem and Bach Magnificat in D. He has also introduced new and varied repertoire to the choir,
including commissions by composer Will Todd, and many newly-written compositions.
Richard is regular organist with the Philharmonia and BBC Symphony Orchestras in London; with them he has performed with many inspirational conductors including established maestri Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, Andrew Davis, Sakari Oramo, Marin Alsop and Ed Gardner, as well as up-and-coming stars such as Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Valentina Peleggi. Recent performances have included the solo organ part in the European première of Unsuk Chin’s Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles with Esa-Pekka Salonen in London’s Royal Festival Hall, and a tour of China performing Saint-Säens organ symphony with Vladimir Ashkenazy. He also performs regularly in Promenade concerts and recordings, including at the Last Night of the Proms, to a worldwide television audience.
Richard frequently conducts and plays for services at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster and at the Houses of Parliament.

We are singing again and we'd love you to join us!

It's nearly back to normal after the covid pandemic, which meant a whole host of safety measures, and we are singing again.

And so we were delighted to have been able to present our concert in Romsey Abbey on 12th November 2022.

For this concert we had 4 fabulous young soloists via the Josephine Baker Trust. We are delighted to be able to give them a platform as they launch their singing careers.

Rehearsal have now started again for Christmas, and we are meeting on Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm - 9.30pm in our usual rehearsal venue - Romsey Methodist church.

If you have been inspired and would like to join us - go to the "Join us" tab at the top of the page and let us know. The membership e-mail address goes through to Sarah Andrews, our Chair and first point of contact for new members.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Hilary Mitchell
RCS Admin Secretary