2023-24 season

Saturday 28 October 2023 St Mark’s Church, Broomhill at 7.30pm

Durufle Requiem

Our season in Sheffield started with a fantastic ‘up close and personal’ concert in the beautiful St Mark’s church in Broomhill. We sang Durufle’s gorgeous Requiem, composed between 1941 and 1947 and incorporating themes from the Gregorian “Mass for the Dead” as well as an evocative solo from mezzo-soprano Margaret McDonald, whose rich deep voice was much admired by everyone there.

In the first half was Tavener’s hauntingly beautiful Syvati and Saint-Saens’ Priere, both featuring Simon Turner, celebrated cellist with the Hallé, and Saint-Saens’ Quam Dilecta.

The evening also featured not one but two world premieres! Sheffield musician Robin Morton and Chorus accompanist Rachel Fright were both winners in the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition in March 2023, and the choir sang both versions of their Sheffield Nocturne, composed for unaccompanied choir, in the first half.

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

Darius Battiwalla – conductor

Margaret McDonald – mezzo soprano

Simon Turner – cello

Neil Taylor – organ

Tickets were £18, students £5 (on the door only) under 18s free (on the door only).

Christmas Concert with Black Dyke Band

Our annual carol concert is an annual event looked forward to by audience and performers alike. With the world famous Black Dyke Band, and popular BBC Radio 3 and Proms presenter Petroc Trelawny – a Christmas treat not to be missed!

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

Darius Battiwalla – conductor

Black Dyke Band

Nicholas Childs – conductor

Petroc Trelawny – presenter

Saturday 16 March 2024, Victoria Hall, Sheffield at 7.30pm

An Evening with British Composers

The Chorus was pleased to present a programme of contrasting works by male and female English and Welsh composers in the newly-refurbished Victoria Hall.

Benjamin Britten’s highly acclaimed and unique cantata Rejoice in the Lamb was composed in 1943 to text taken from Christopher Smart’s bizarre 18th century poem Jubilate Agno, first published in 1939.  Smart was famous for approaching people in the street and asking them to pray with him, which in those days was reason enough to confine him to a madhouse. His poem grabbed Britten’s imagination and he was able to reveal Smart as more visionary than lunatic, and his poem as a wonderfully imaginative Benedicite or thanksgiving.  It may not be orthodox or biblical to see the creative wonder of God in tigers, bears, bassoons, clarinets, and letters of the alphabet but, Britten smilingly asks, why not?

Imogen Holst was Benjamin Britten’s musical assistant and artistic director of the annual Aldeburgh Festival for many years, eventually giving this up to resume composing and preserving her father’s musical legacy.  Imogen showed precocious talent in composing and performance from a young age, and wrote her Three Psalms in 1933. The pieces are expressive and generous, using dissonance and drama alongside restrained accompaniment so the spotlight is firmly on the singers and the words of the psalms.

Imogen’s father Gustav Holst’s Two Psalms was written 21 years earlier, again for chorus, organ and strings. Holst found the spiritual aspect of the church very appealing, but disliked what he saw as its regimented orthodoxy and, probably as a result, composed little sacred music. The Two Psalms, written before The Planets and as different from that work as can be imagined, use plainchant and chorale harmonization to great effect, conveying reverence and anguish in equal measure. Holst served as the music master at St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith from 1905 to 1934 and the National Festival Orchetsra played his short but perfectly-formed St Paul’s Suite, one of many pieces he wrote for the school’s students.

Welsh composer Grace Williams was a contemporary of both Britten and Imogen Holst and one of the first professional Welsh composers of the twentieth-century to attain significant national recognition. Many of her works are directly inspired by Wales and its culture. She worked as a successful composer and music teacher in London for many years, but returned to live and work in Wales in 1947, writing choral and vocal music in her later years. Her exquisite Ave Maris Stella for mixed chorus was commissioned by the North Wales Music Festival in 1973, and the rhythms and melodic lines of the music reflect the ebb and flow of the sea, with which the composer had a life-long fascination. Read more about Grace Williams, regarded by some as one of the greatest female composers of the 20th century, on her official website: Grace Williams website

• Britten: Rejoice in the Lamb
• Imogen Holst: Three Psalms
• Interval
• Grace Williams: Ave Maris Stella
• Gustav Holst: St Paul’s Suite (orchestra only)
• Gustav Holst: Two Psalms

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

National Festival Orchestra

Darius Battiwalla – conductor

James Mitchell – organ

Tickets were £18, £5 for students on the door, under 18s and carers free on the door. Tickets for those in wheelchairs and with limited mobility were available by email.

Come and Sing Haydn’s Creation in the Upper Chapel Sheffield

Darius Battiwalla – Conductor

Neil Taylor – organ

Emily Costigan – soprano

Sean Brines – tenor

Charles Murray – bass

10am to 4pm, performance at 5pm

In May we held a Come and Sing event,  a new venture for the Chorus and a super chance for folk to sing a popular choral work with South Yorkshire’s foremost mixed voice large choir. Haydn’s wonderful oratorio Creation created a sensation when the work was first played in public, particularly the ‘let there be light’ moment; according to a friend of the composer: “…one would have said that rays darted from the composer’s burning eyes. The enchantment of the electrified Viennese was so general that the orchestra could not proceed for some minutes.” There wasn’t an orchestra on this occasion but accomplished organist Neil Taylor really worked the Upper Chapel’s organ, and alongside over 100 singers, achieved a similar effect. It’s a super work, very tuneful and not too difficult to sing, with spine-chillingly soft and quiet parts as well as rousing sections that really make your heart sing and your soul soar.

The Upper Chapel on Norfolk Street was almost full to capacity and those attending spent the day rehearsing Parts 1 and 2 of Haydn’s marvellous Creation alongside the City Hall’s Resident Chorus, conducted by the choir’s Music Director Darius Battiwalla. Darius has conducted choral performances with leading orchestras including the Halle, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Manchester Camerata, and he has prepared the Chorus for appearances at the Proms and for recordings with the BBC Philharmonic for Chandos. He has worked regularly as guest chorusmaster or conductor with many other choirs including the Northern Sinfonia Chorus, Leeds Philharmonic Chorus, Huddersfield Choral Society, CBSO chorus and Netherlands Radio Choir.  Darius is Leeds City Organist and has appeared as organ soloist with the Halle, London Philharmonic Orchestras and the BBC Philharmonic, and he gives regular chamber concerts with members of the Manchester orchestras on piano and harpsichord. Despite this impressive record he is a very friendly conductor, encouragingly supportive and challenging in equal measure – qualities that were much in evidence on this very successful day.

The day started at 10.30 with registration from 10am, and ran to 12.30 with a break for tea or coffee and cake (included in the admission price).  We re-commenced after lunch at 2pm and rehearsed until 4pm, when there was a longer break until the performance for family and friends at 5pm. Scores were provided, though many participants brought their own – any version was acceptable as there isn’t a lot of variation between them.

Information about joining the Chorus was available on the day; see https://sheffieldphil.org/membership-join/new-members/

Tickets for visiting singers cost £20 including score and refreshments. Tickets for the performance were FREE, but tickets were required.

Mozart Requiem

The final concert of the season featured a much-anticipated appearance of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra with their award-winning Music Director, Kristiina Poska.

Renowned for her choral conducting, Kristina directed a star-studded cast of soloists along with the combined forces of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra and Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. Including the mournful “Lacrimosa”, it is considered by many to be the composer’s greatest masterpiece.

Mozart’s Overture to Don Giovanni, famously written in just three hours the night before the outrageous comedy opera’s premiere, opened the concert, followed by Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony. Fondly referred to by the composer himself as “my little Symphony in F”, it is notable for its dramatic shifts in dynamics, feverish cross-rhythms and heavenly, almost hymn-like, episodes. This was a season finale not to be missed.

Kristiina Poska conductor

Yena Choi soprano

Kadi Jürgens mezzo

Denzil Delaere tenor

Christian Immler bass-baritone

• 22 to 25 September 2023  Mahler 2 in Monte Carlo, with CBSO
• Friday 21 June 2024 Mozart Requiem with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra in the Cadogan Hall London
• Sunday 23 June 2024 Mozart Requiem with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra in the Usher Hall Edinburgh
• 10 to 17 July 2024 Faure Requiem, mini tour in France