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About Our Choir
Winchester Music Club is one of Hampshire’s longest established choral groups with about 100 members and an associated orchestra. An independent charity run by its members, the choir benefits greatly from a close association with Winchester College, whose Master of Music, David Thomas, is our musical director. The choir not only enjoys first class facilities for rehearsal, but also the support of other music staff of the college to facilitate sectional practise sessions for the various voice groups.
Established singers who join us will find an environment which allows them to participate at a high level in choral music - with at least one performance every year in Winchester Cathedral. We normally engage young professional soloists, but on occasion concerts have included household names such as Kiri Te Kanawa and Bryn Terfel. Our collegiate support also means that less-practised or aspiring singers who have only sung irregularly but want to improve, can find our choir an ideal opportunity to realise their ambitions. A good ear, a good voice, and enthusiasm, are often all that is needed to open the door to a fulfilling and sociable leisure activity.
Our History
Winchester Music Club was founded in 1925 from a group called the Nightjars Madrigal Society, with an orchestral section under Dr George Dyson, then Master of Music at Winchester College, and later Director of the Royal College of Music. From the earliest days ambitious concerts have been presented, as in 1927 with a Beethoven Centenary concert featuring the Egmont Overture and the 9th Symphony. In 1928 Leon Goossens was paid five guineas as an oboist in a Schubert Centenary commemoration. In 1946 Peter Pears featured as the Evangelist in the Bach St John Passion, and in 1948 a certain Mr Scott-Joynt sang as a soloist in the Verdi Requiem in the Cathedral where his son would one day become bishop. In 1963 a performance of The Canterbury Pilgrims, written by Dyson himself, marked (then) Sir George Dyson's eightieth birthday, a year before his death.
Isobel Baillie and Owen Brannigan were soloists under Christopher Cowan in that birthday concert and other world renowned artists such as Kathleen Ferrier, Wilfred Brown, Dennis Brain, and Vladimir Ashkenazy have performed with the Club. More recently we are proud to have worked with Felicity Lott, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, David Wilson-Johnson, Gillian Fisher and William Kendall. In 2008 we were delighted to perform a charity concert in the Cathedral with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and in 2009 we were proud to perform with the acclaimed bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, again in a concert supporting a local charity.
