Hertford Choral Society
Hertford Choral Society (HCS) is a non-auditioned community choir ​and registered charity ​based in Hertford. Its origins date back to September 1938 and, working together with the Oral History Team, it is celebrating its 80th anniversary in 2018/19 by recording some of its 135 members, and its musical director, talking about​ their experiences of the choir.
Throughout its history, HCS has recorded a number of significant musical achievements. It gave the very first performance by an amateur choir of Scarlatti's then newly-discovered ten-part Stabat Mater in 1950. ​It has also​, for example, performed with other Hertfordshire choirs at the ​R​oyal Albert Hall on four occasions (Britten's War Requiem, 1994; Mahler's Symphony no.8, October 1999; Verdi's Requiem, 2003 and Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts, 2007) and travelled to Hertford's twin towns of Evron and Wildeshausen (the latter in particular many times including return visits and a planned trip of members to Germany in October 2018).
​The choir gave one of the first amateur choir performances of Michael Berkeley's Or Shall we Die?​ in 1987. ​It has sung with a number of notable soloists over its history​ including Peter Pears,​ John Carol Case, Ilse Wolf, ​​Lesley Garrett, Ian Bostridge, Emma Kirkby, Tracey Chadwell and David Wilson-Johnson​, and it has recorded four professionally-edited ​albums​ (1991, 1996, 2009, ​and 2016). The choir's Presidents have been David Wilson-Johnson, Brian Kay, Sir Norman Lindop​ and, at the time of the recordings, the composer and broadcaster Lord Berkeley of Knighton – Michael Berkeley, CBE.
Instant Archive
The recordings mainly took place on Saturday 16th June 2018 at the 91¿´Æ¬ and in the company of Oral History Team members Anne Murphy, Jenny Dart and Andrew Green. This timing was extremely fortunate, coming as it did just a week after a wonderful HCS concert performance of Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony in St Albans Abbey, and just before the summer break and its next – and 80th – season. Nine choir members were trained to interview fellow singers/MD and the result is a fascinating oral history, contained in 30 separate interviews, of life inside a choral society.
You can read more about the interviewees, and listen to all of the 80th Anniversary interviews in the Oral History Archive
Frances Green who organised the event said:
Warm thanks are extended to the 91¿´Æ¬ Heritage Hub for making this initiative possible, and to all the people who took part – both as interviewers and interviewees and, in some cases, both! Between us we have created what we believe to be the very first oral history of a UK choral society, a perfect accompaniment to the written History of HCS which will be published in September 2018, and a wonderful legacy for families, friends and generations of singers to come. It has been a fascinating and rewarding project and one in which it has been an enormous privilege to take part.
We are a choir that loves our singing and our community, and look forward to all the fun and musical challenges involved. New members - of both choir and audience - are always very welcome indeed
Please visit the website for full details about the choir.