Manchester University Chorus, founded in 1936, is a large group of singers which includes students at Manchester University, UMIST and MMU as well as staff and people from outside the universities. We welcome all singers regardless of previous experience - there are no auditions.
Together with the University Symphony Orchestra, we put on two concerts a year, in December and March, usually in the University's Whitworth Hall. In the first five weeks of this summer term we meet for casual choral singing, purely for our own pleasure and not aiming for performance in a concert.
Come along if you're interested. Rehearsals are during term time on Tuesdays, 7.30-9.30, in the Music Department, Denmark Road, off Oxford Road near the Whitworth Gallery.
Our programme for the academic year 1998/9 is:
Programmes from the past few years have included:
Bach - Christmas Oratorio, St Matthew Passion
Berlioz - Te Deum
Bernstein - Chichester Psalms
Brahms - German Requiem
Britten - War Requiem
Durufle - Requiem
Holst - Hymn of Jesus
Kodaly - Missa Brevis
Mozart - Requiem.
Orff - Carmina Burana
Parry - Blest Pair of Sirens
Verdi - Stabat Mater, Te Deum
The Chorus is nominally attached to The University of Manchester, but membership is open to anyone. Membership fees for the 1998/9 session are:
If you are a student at the University of Manchester you can join at the Freshers' Fair, and anyone can join at a rehearsal.
If you are not sure if you want to join, come along to the first few rehearsals. It is very likely that you will want to join once you have tried it out, and you don't have to join the first week.
Copies of the music for the pieces we are singing will be available for loan and, if demand is sufficient, for sale.
If you borrow music please hand it in after the concert as it costs us a large amount of money to replace the copies that go missing. If you forget to hand it in immediately, please bring it back as soon as possible. We don't care that you forgot, and have no desire to punish you, we just want the copies back.
Once you have your own (loaned or bought) copy, you will need to bring a pencil and an eraser to rehearsals to annotate the music. Please make sure you only use a soft pencil (2B or softer) so that future users of the music can erase your markings.
Rehearsals are on a Tuesday evening from 7.30pm to 9.30pm during term time in the Music department. There is also a final rehearsal on the afternoon before each concert, which is held in the concert venue.
This means that for the 1998/9 session, rehearsals will be every Tuesday from 6 October 1998 to 8 December 1998 and 12 December 1998 for the first concert, and every Tuesday from 19 January 1999 to 16 March 1999 and 20 March 1999 for the second concert.
Please try to come to rehearsals as regularly as possible.
Map of the location of the music department.
We can always use more voices (particularly tenors), so if you know anyone who might enjoy it, badger them to come along too.
If you would like more information about any aspect of the Chorus or its concerts, then please email me or just turn up at the rehearsals.
