Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus (also known as Sheffield Phil) is a large choir based in Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The chorus consists of about 190 members from Sheffield and the surrounding area and performs between 5 and 10 concerts each season. A regular venue is Sheffield City Hall

Sheffield City Hall

Sheffield City Hall is a Grade II* listed building in Sheffield, England, containing several venues, ranging from the Oval Concert Hall which seats over 2,000 people to a ballroom featuring a sprung dance floor...

, although the choir also performs concerts in the Bridgewater Hall

Bridgewater Hall

The Bridgewater Hall is an international concert venue in Manchester city centre, England. It cost around £42 million to build and currently hosts over 250 performances a year....

 and Leeds Town Hall

Leeds Town Hall

Leeds Town Hall was built between 1853 and 1858 on Park Lane , Leeds, West Yorkshire, England to a design by architect Cuthbert Brodrick.-Background:...

 as well as other national and international venues. The current musical director of the chorus is Darius Battiwalla who has held the post since 1997.

History

The emergence of Sheffield Phiharmonic Chorus stems from an amalgamation of two pre-existing Sheffield musical organisations in the 1930s, the Amateur Musical Society and Sheffield Musical Union.

Amateur Musical Society

The local Amateur Musical Society was founded in 1864 and run by H W Ibbotson (a local solicitor), having developed from a singing class Ibbotson initiated in 1857. From 1935, the recently-built Sheffield City Hall became the home of an annual series of concerts, which were to be organised by the Amateur Musical Society. The society changed its name to Sheffield Philharmonic Society and its choir, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, became the resident chorus.

Sheffield Musical Union

Founded in 1876 by Henry Coward

Henry Coward

Henry Coward was a British conductor.Born in Liverpool to parents in the entertainment industry, Coward took an apprenticeship to a cutler in Sheffield. Educating himself, he became a teacher and soon a headteacher....

, the Sheffield Musical Union started off life as a tonic sol-fa

Tonic sol-fa

Tonic sol-fa is a pedagogical technique for teaching sight-singing, invented by Sarah Ann Glover of Norwich, England and popularised by John Curwen who adapted it from a number of earlier musical systems...

 class but grew in stature, undertaking international tours in early 1908 and 1911. In 1937 the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus merged with Sheffield Musical Union, increasing the membership of the choir to almost 400.

Patron

On 6 February 2008 it was announced that actor and director Samuel West

Samuel West

Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor and theatre director. He is perhaps best known for his role in Howards End and his work on stage. He also starred in the award-winning play ENRON...

 would become patron of the chorus. He had already appeared with the chorus as the narrator for two performances of an arrangement of Walton's

William Walton

Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...

 Henry V

Henry V (1944 film)

Henry V is a 1944 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name. The on-screen title is The Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France . It stars Laurence Olivier, who also directed. The play was adapted for the screen by Olivier, Dallas...

 music in 2005.

Notable musical collaborations and events

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus regularly sings with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia

Northern Sinfonia

The Northern Sinfonia is a British chamber orchestra, based initially in Newcastle upon Tyne, and currently in Gateshead. For the first 46 years of its history, the orchestra gave the bulk of its concerts at the City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Since 2004, the orchestra has been resident at The...

, Manchester Camerata

Manchester Camerata

The Manchester Camerata is a British chamber orchestra based in Manchester, England. The orchestra was founded in the 1971–1972 season. A sub-group from the orchestra, the Manchester Camerata Ensemble, specialises in chamber music performances....

 and the Hallé

Halle

Halle is a noun that means hall in the German language. It may also refer to:-In Germany:* Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, official name Halle , also called Halle or Halle an der Saale...

, and over the last few years has performed under the batons of Gianandrea Noseda

Gianandrea Noseda

Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conductor. He studied piano, composition and conducting in Milan. He furthered his conducting studies with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev....

, Nicholas Kraemer

Nicholas Kraemer

Nicholas Kraemer is a British harpsichordist and conductor. Kraemer began his career as a harpsichordist...

, and Sir Mark Elder

Mark Elder

Sir Mark Philip Elder, CBE is a British conductor. He is the music director of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, England.-Biography:Elder was born in Hexham, Northumberland, England, the son of a dentist...

, as well as its own regular conductor, Darius Battiwalla, and others. In previous years Sheffield Phil has also been conducted by Sir John Barbirolli and Vassily Sinaisky

Vassily Sinaisky

Vassily Serafimovich Sinaisky is a Russian conductor and pianist. He studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory and began his career as Assistant to Kirill Kondrashin at the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra...

.

On 29 September 2007 the chorus took part in the 75th Gala Concert for Sheffield City Hall, singing with soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 Lesley Garrett

Lesley Garrett

Lesley Garrett CBE is an English musician, broadcaster and media personality.- Early life :Garrett was born in the town of Thorne near Doncaster in South Yorkshire, into a musical family. She attended Thorne Grammar School, where she performed in school plays and musicals. As she grew up she...

, joined by dancers Erin Boag

Erin Boag

Erin Boag is a professional ballroom dancer. She has danced from the age of three, originally starting ballet and later moving into ballroom, Latin and jazz...

 and Anton du Beke

Anton du Beke

Anton du Beke is a British ballroom dancer and television presenter. His professional dance partner since 1997 has been Erin Boag. With Boag, he won the IDTA Classic in England in November 2003.-Family and early life:...

.

Since around 2006 Sheffield Phil has developed touring and performance links with the Philharmonischer Chor Bochum, who are regular performers with the Bochumer Symphoniker and based in Bochum

Bochum

Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...

, one of Sheffield's twin towns in Germany.

Proms

The chorus has been invited to participate in The Proms

The Proms

The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...

 on three occasions in recent years. August 1998 saw the choir contribute to the total of thousand singers led by Nicholas Kenyon

Nicholas Kenyon

Sir Nicholas Roger Kenyon CBE is an English music administrator, editor and writer on music. He was responsible for the BBC Proms 1996-2007 following which he was appointed Managing Director of the Barbican Centre, Europe's largest multi-arts centre.-Education and career:After attending St Bede's...

 who sang Orff

Carl Orff

Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

's Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana (Orff)

Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...

. On 10 September 2005 Sheffield Phil performed in the Proms in the Park event for the Last Night of
the Proms in Heaton Park

Heaton Park

Heaton Park, covering an area variously reported as , 247 hectares, , over and is the biggest park in Greater Manchester, England and one of the biggest municipal parks in Europe. The park comprises the grounds of a Grade I listed, neoclassical 18th century country house, Heaton Hall...

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. For the 2008 Prom season members of the chorus joined the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus

City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus

The CBSO Chorus is a chorus based in Birmingham, England. It is regarded as one of the finest symphony choruses in Europe.It was founded in 1974 as the CBSO Chorus, but between 1995 and 2009 was known officially as The City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus...

 and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for Prom 75; the programme included Beethoven's ninth symphony (sung from memory) and his Elegischer Gesang

Elegischer Gesang

Elegischer Gesang , Op. 118, is a work by Ludwig van Beethoven, which is scored for string quartet and four voices. The work furthers Beethoven's late infatuation with the genre of the string quartet. It is one of Beethoven's least known works and is not performed or recorded very often.-External...

.

75th Anniversary

For the 75th Anniversary (2010-11 Season) of the chorus a commemorative book was published by the longest serving member Bill Smyllie.. This season also sees the chorus feature on Songs of Praise

Songs of Praise

Songs of Praise is a BBC Television programme based around traditional Christian hymns. It is a widely watched and long-running religious television programme, one of the few peak-time free-to-air religious programmes in Europe Songs of Praise is a BBC Television programme based around traditional...

, work once again with their patron Sam West in Walton's Henry V and perform a number of large scale works such as Elgar

Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

's The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...

 and Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Requiem.

Membership and organisation

The chorus is run by an elected committee of volunteers and consists of Soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

, Alto

Alto

Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,...

, Tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 and Bass

Bass (voice type)

A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...

 sections. Membership of the chorus is by audition and all members are re-auditioned on a regular basis. The musical director is also assisted by an accompanist and voice coach.

Discography

Year of release	Format	Work	Composer	Conductor	Orchestra	Record Label	Catalogue number
1999	CD	The Dream of Gerontius The Dream of Gerontius The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...	Sir Edward Elgar Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...	Sir John Barbirolli	Hallé Orchestra	EMI EMI Classics EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....	CMS7631852/CZS5735792
2002	CD	Scott of the Antarctic	Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...	Rumon Gamba Rumon Gamba Rumon Gamba , is an English conductor. He studied music at Durham University, and then went to the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied conducting with Colin Metters, George Hurst and Sir Colin Davis. He became the first conducting student to obtain the DipRAM...	BBC Philharmonic Orchestra	Chandos Chandos Records Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...	CHAN10007
2002	CD	The Maxim Trilogy	Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....	Vassily Sinaisky	BBC Philharmonic Orchestra	Chandos	CHAN10023
2007	CD	Festival Overture	Cyril Scott Cyril Scott Cyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, and poet.-Biography:Scott was born in Oxton, England to a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott , an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to...	Martyn Brabbins Martyn Brabbins Martyn Brabbins is a British conductor. He studied at Goldsmiths College, London University, and later was a conducting student of Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory....	BBC Philharmonic Orchestra	Chandos	CHAN10407
2009	CD	Crown of India	Sir Edward Elgar	Sir Andrew Davis Andrew Davis (conductor) Sir Andrew Frank Davis CBE is a British conductor.Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire to Robert J. Davis and his wife Florence J. née Badminton, Davis grew up in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and in Watford. Davis attended Watford Boys' Grammar School, where he studied classics in his sixth form years...	BBC Philharmonic Orchestra	Chandos	CHAN10570(2)
2010	DVD	The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace The Armed Man The Armed Man is a Mass by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins, subtitled "A Mass for Peace". The piece was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum for the Millennium celebrations, and to mark the museum's move from London to Leeds, and it was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis...	Karl Jenkins Karl Jenkins -Other works:*Adiemus: Live — live versions of Adiemus music*Palladio *Eloise *Imagined Oceans *The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace...	John Pryce-Jones	Black Dyke Band Black Dyke Band The Black Dyke Band, formerly the Black Dyke Mills Band, is one of the oldest and best-known brass bands in the world. The band has won many prizes and competitions over the years...	World of Brass