Romsey Choral Society

Welcome to Romsey Choral Society!

News -

In December we were delighted to participate in a carol concert 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 were happy to support this important event.

You can find out more about Honeypot here:

Honeypot charity

And our own Romsey Choral Society Christmas concert happened on a snowy afternoon at the Chandlers Ford Methodist church. We had invited the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance to attend this event to publicise their service and to raise funds to continue the great work that they do. As a charity, this fund raising activity is vital and saves lives.

We were delighted to hear that the bucket collection raised £717.27.

You can find out more about the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance here:

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance

Our next concert, which as usual in March is held in St.Cross church in Winchester, will be a celebration of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. In October 2022 it was the 150 anniversary of the composer’s birth so it seems very appropriate that we are dedicating this concert to some of his best known and loved choral music.
We shall be performing his famous piece “The Lark Ascending “ for Violin solo and choir accompaniment, The Te Deum, Psalm 100 and the Mass in G minor.
This will be a real feast for lovers of Vaughan William’s music and a wonderful introduction to those who are not so familiar with his works.

For all the details of our next concert on 18th March 2023 please click on the "Next concert" page.

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 full season's repertoire is listed in the "Concerts" page.

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 2 years 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.

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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

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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.

And then at Christmas we were able to sing some old favourites and some more unusual seasonal music, supporting 2 important charities - details above.

If you have been inspired to start the New Year with a new song and would like to give us a try - 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, the first point of contact for new members, who will be in touch to tell you a bit more about the choir.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Hilary Mitchell
RCS Admin Secretary