After the success of the Autumn Leaves concert in November, in which BCS performed a mixed bag of modern and traditional folk songs, pop and songs from the shows (Oliver !) the choir is offering traditional choral fare in April. Stainer’s ever popular Crucifixion and the delightful Requiem by Fauré will be accompanied by the Sinfonia da Chiesa under baton of Stephen Hope. Please check later for ticket price.
In July, Sunday 27th, BCS will be joining forces with the Sussex Festival Choir in a performance of The Dream of Gerontius at Arundel Cathedral, accompanied by the Sinfonia da Chiesa and with Sir Willard White amongst other notable soloists. This makes for a delightful day out and a superb setting for what is an unforgettable work, Audience members who wish to can travel with the choir by coach from central Basildon. Again, please check this website for ticket and travel details.
The thing I love about singing with choirs is the phenomenal range of music, styles and singers. Take a look at this choir, Perpetuum Jazzile, Slovenia’s only jazz choir, simulating a storm with their fingers, hands and feet, before leading into a chorus with strong African themes.
Buried away on the internet is an absolute treasure trove of choral music. Accessed through a wiki page, the Choral Public Domain Library, which was started in 1998, permits unrestricted downloads of free music. For instance, since we first performed Gounod’s Stabat Mater, using copies photocopied with the permission of the British Library, someone has taken the time to enter the entire score via a music editor to allow choirs to download it for free.
A quick look at Rachmaninov revealed four versions (!) of Bogoroditze Devo, all in nice clear print.
Take a look – and see if you can find a hidden gem for BCS or the BCS Small Choir to sing.
These are some of my favourites from the fifty or so pictures of our Bavarian trip so far submitted. You can see the rest by looking at our Flickr photostream! I am sure there are many, many more lovely pictures out there. Why not email them to choirpics@basildonchoral.org? (And tell me you’ve done it so that I can put details of who took them in the description!)
Basildon Choral Society is now on Facebook – another great way to advertise our concerts as well as the social side of singing. Come over and “like” us! 🙂
Basildon Choral Society is now on Flickr! If you’ve a picture of the choir or pictures from one of its trips you can email them to our Flickr gallery on choirpics@basildonchoral.org – alternatively, if you would rather I select a few then email me on ben@basildonchoral.org and I’ll tag them and categorise them.
Welcome to the new website for Basildon Choral Society. As you can probably tell, it is hosted on WordPress and should now be a lot more flexible for all to use. Here you’ll find out how to get in touch with choir, when the next concerts are, when the next trips are and what socials are going on. You may also stumble across tidbits of information about composers and choral music in general (not to mention the occasional recipe!).
Basildon Choral Society is an amateur choir with a repertoire that ranges widely from motets, masses and challenging modern choral works to spirituals, jazz numbers and arrangements of songs from favourite musicals. We have four seasonal concerts and give a variety of additional performances throughout the year at the request of churches, charities and private organisations - either with the full ensemble or the BCS Small Choir.
Our membership is widely varied in age and background.
We're an adventurous bunch and have taken concerts to Basildon's twin towns in France (Meaux) and Germany (Heiligenhaus), as well as to Barcelona, Bruges, Erlangen, Florence, Gossweinstein, Krakow, Lille, Ostend, Rome and Venice.
We also enjoy good food and have the occasional social dinner and barbecue!
Tickets for all concerts can be purchased in advance from Pam Shankland on 01268 450421 or on the door on the night.
Basildon Choral Society 