HISTORY

The Surrey Festival Choir originated in the Surrey County Music Association, founded by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1941 to foster music-making of all kinds around the county. The SCMA also founded an annual summer school, now the Charterhouse Summer School. Appropriately, the choir’s first performance, in 1961, was Haydn’s Creation, with 500 voices and a full orchestra conducted by Norman Askew.

Ralph Nicholson conducted the choir from 1968 to 1985. His rehearsals were always punctuated by anecdotes and his impersonation of Sir Thomas Beecham was legendary!

Peter Wright succeeded Ralph Nicholson in 1986, while Sub-organist at Guildford Cathedral, later becoming Director of Music at Southwark, and he continued until 2001, directing the choir in works as diverse as Bach’s B Minor Mass and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Stanford’s Requiem and Stabat Mater were two of the many successes and the Millenium was celebrated with a highly enjoyable, “unauthentic” performance of Handel’s Messiah in the Prout orchestration.

David Gibson followed Peter Wright in 2002 and introduced new repertoire such as Charpentier’s Te Deum and in 2003, prompted by events in Iraq, A Concert for Peace, which linked RVW’s Dona Nobis Pacem and The Lark Ascending with Elgar’s The Spirit of England.

David Davies, taking over as conductor in 2007, already made his mark with a concert on 7th July celebrating the 150th anniversary of Elgar’s birth with The Music Makers and Sea Pictures, sung superbly by mezzo-soprano Diana Moore, and Coronation Ode. David Leach’s review in the Surrey Advertiser praised the pure tone of the choir’s sopranos and the way the chorus, orchestra and soloists entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the Coronation Ode. “Diana's two solos were outstanding”.

In 2008 the Verdi Requiem was sung with Diana Moore again in impressive form.Tenor Mark Milhofer treated the audience to an “Italian operatic voice in all its glory. His Ingemisco tanquam reus was especially memorable." The Surrey Mirror also commented that David Davies “conducted with clear direction, drawing some glorious moments from both singers and instrumentalists and producing a very fine and moving interpretation of this amazing Requiem.”

In July 2009 the choir reluctantly said goodbye to David Davies but the performance of JS Bach’s B Minor Mass was a fitting tribute to his skills as choir master and conductor. The reviewer spoke of him ‘”conducting with serene assurance, drawing out the best from all the musicians under his baton to produce a moving interpretation of this wonderful Mass.”