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Chorus project shortlisted for Making Music Award

27 September 2023

The Chorus was excited to hear that the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition has been shortlisted for a Making Music UK award in the ‘Best Project with a Focus on New Music’ category. . The competition was organised by the Chorus as part of the 10th anniversary Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2023, and culminated in a world premiere performance of the two winning compositions to a sell-out audience at the festival finale at Sheffield City Hall.

The competition, in its inaugural year, attracted fourteen high-quality pieces of music to be judged by a panel of experts which included conductor and composer George Nicholson, Emeritus Professor of Composition at the University of Sheffield, and Chorus Music director Darius Battiwalla. It was set up in memory of former Chorus member Stella Jockel, who supported young musicians throughout her life, using part of a generous legacy left to the Chorus when she died in 2020.

“We wanted to use Stella’s legacy to continue her work by supporting local young composers, who struggle to find outlets for their compositions” explained Chorus President Rachel Copley, “We worked hard to make sure there were as few barriers as possible, so we didn’t charge an entry fee for example, or require recordings of the works. It was a real privilege to be able to make the two winning works come to life in the festival finale”

The text for the competition was set by award-winning Sheffield poet Katherine Towers, and it encouraged the young composers to think outside the box when writing their pieces. Joint winners Mason Birch and James Thomas wowed the judges and the 1,400-strong audience at Sheffield City Hall with their talent and fine ear for composition. All the winners received their prizes from the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Sioned-Mair Richards.

Making Music is the UK’s membership organisation for leisure-time music, with around 3,850 groups representing around 228,000 music makers across the UK. They are dedicated to empowering everyone, whatever their background or experience, to come together in their community to make or present music.

SHEFFIELD PHILHARMONIC CHORUS LAUNCHES COMPETITION

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Florence Lockheart, Classical Music

The competition honours past choir member Stella Jockel, who bequeathed the funds which made the competition possible.

South Yorkshire choir, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, has launched the inaugural Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition. The choir invites Sheffield composers to submit a choral work to be premiered at the 10^th anniversary Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival finale next year.

The winning composer will receive £1,500 and their submission will be premiered at Sheffield City Hall in March 2023. The competition also offers a second prize of £1,000 or third prize of £500. The event was made possible by funds left to the choir by Sheffield local and previous choir member, Stella Jockel.

Chorus chair Paul Henstridge said: ‘Stella Jockel was a Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who sang alto with the Chorus for many years. She bequeathed a generous legacy to the Chorus following her death in 2020, and we are delighted to be using part of it to fund this new competition.’

Applicants aged 18 to 35 and were born, lived or studied in Sheffield, are invited to submit a short unaccompanied work for a mixed choir in at least four parts. Submissions will be judged by University of Sheffield emeritus professor of composition, George Nicholson; who will lead a panel including music director of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, Darius Battiwall; music director of Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra, George Morton and music director of Hallam Choral Society, Clara Rundell.

Applicants will set Sheffield Nocturne, a text written by poet and chorus alto Katharine Towers, herself a previous winner of the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize who was also shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Talking about her commission, Towers said: ‘I’m utterly thrilled to have been given this opportunity. I’ve greatly enjoyed the challenge, and it’s been such an interesting experience to write something in the knowledge that music would be coming its way.’

Entries must be submitted before 31 December. You can find more information, including details of how to apply, at the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus website.

Read the article on the Classical Music website

Exciting competition for young composers

Chorus launches Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition

Generous prizes are on offer in an exciting new competition launched by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus. Budding composers aged 18 to 35 are invited to submit a short choral work for a mixed choir to sing unaccompanied in at least four parts.

The competition is open to people who were born, lived or studied in Sheffield and is organised by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus as part of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival 2023.

‘Stella Jockel was a Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who sang alto with the Chorus for many years.’ explained Chorus Chair Paul Henstridge. ‘She bequeathed a generous legacy to the Chorus following her death in 2020, and we are delighted to be using part of it to fund this new competition. It’s especially exciting that we’ll be singing the prize-winning work at the City Hall as part of Classical Sheffield’s three-day classical music festival’.

The text has been commissioned from award-winning poet Katharine Towers, who sings in the alto section of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus. Kathy won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for The Floating Man and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for The Remedies. ‘I’m utterly thrilled to have been given this opportunity’ she said. ‘I’ve greatly enjoyed the challenge, and it’s been such an interesting experience to write something in the knowledge that music would be coming its way.’

The winning composer will receive £1,500 and their work will be premiered at the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival finale on Sunday 19 March 2023 in the City Hall. It will be followed by a performance of Mahler’s magnificent 2^nd symphony by the combined forces of Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallam Sinfonia, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and Hallam Choral Society, conducted by George Morton and bringing the 10^th anniversary festival to a spectacular close.

George Nicholson, Emeritus Professor of Composition at the University of Sheffield, will head a panel of judges that includes the Music Directors of the finale performers. The deadline for entries is 31 December 2022 and the shortlist will be announced early in the new year. For details see www.sheffieldphil.org/youngcomposer

Read the article on the Classical Sheffield website

Local Choir Launches New Competition For Young Composers

Posted by Sam Pegg 31 October 2022

RMCMEDIA Website, Movers and Makers

GENEROUS PRIZES ARE ON OFFER IN AN EXCITING NEW COMPETITION LAUNCHED BY SHEFFIELD PHILHARMONIC CHORUS.

Budding composers aged 18 to 35 are invited to submit a short choral work for a mixed choir to sing unaccompanied in at least four parts.

The competition is open to people who were born, lived or studied in Sheffield and is organised by Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus as part of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival 2023.

George Nicholson, Emeritus Professor of Composition at the University of Sheffield, will head a panel of judges that includes the Music Directors of the finale performers. The deadline for entries is 31 December 2022 and the shortlist will be announced early in the new year. For details see www.sheffieldphil.org/youngcomposer

Read the article on the rmcmedia website

Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus organised the first Stella Jockel Young Composers Competition as part of Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2023.

Young Composer trophies Photo by Bill Lam

The competition arose from the choir’s commitment to supporting young musicians and was funded by a generous legacy bequeathed to the Chorus by Stella Jockel, a former Sheffield teacher and vicar’s wife who sang alto with the Chorus for many years and who died in 2019.

The aim of the competition was to support the creation and performance of new choral repertoire and to encourage and

support young people from Sheffield who are starting out on a career in music composition and/or performance. To provide maximum opportunity and benefit to candidates and to remove as many barriers as possible, the competition was designed using the following principles:

No entry fee
No requirement to provide multiple paper copies or a recording of the composition, which would have proved costly for candidates
Anonymised entries to ensure judging purely on the merits of the composition
Feedback provided to everyone who sent in an entry
First prize to include a performance of the work at a prestigious concert with a large audience in the City Hall, Sheffield
Three financial prizes (£1,500, £1,100, and £500)
No retention of the copyright by the Chorus once the competition was over

The competition was open to young people aged 18 to 35 who currently or used to live, study, or work in Sheffield. The requirement was for a short choral work for a large mixed symphonic choir to be sung unaccompanied in at least four parts.

The text for the 2022-23 competition was commissioned from award-winning poet Katharine Towers, who sings alto with the Chorus. Kathy won the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for The Floating Man and was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for The Remedies. Her beautiful poem ‘Sheffield Nocturne’ was the result.

Information about the competition was provided on a dedicated area of the Chorus website and in a downloadable Competition Pack. Details were sent to every conservatoire and university music department in the UK, to Sheffield Music Hub and Sheffield Music Academy and to all Sheffield secondary schools, in October 2022.

Fourteen entries were received by the deadline of 31 December 2022. The scores were anonymised to avoid bias, especially since Head Judge George Nicholson is Emeritus Professor of Composition at the University of Sheffield and was likely to know some of the candidates. He headed a panel that included the Music Directors from each of the two choirs that would sing the winning work.

Two compositions were judged to have equal merit, and they received their world premiere performances at Sheffield City Hall on the final evening of the Classical Sheffield Weekend Festival, Sunday 19 March 2023. The prizes were awarded by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Sioned-Mair Richards.

The premiere was followed by a performance of Mahler’s 2nd symphony by Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallam Sinfonia, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and Hallam Choral Society. Conducted by George Morton and featuring acclaimed singers Anna Harvey and Ella Taylor, both from Sheffield, this brought the 10th anniversary festival to a spectacular close.

In September 2023 the competition was shortlisted for a Making Music Award in the category ‘Best project involving new music’.

More about the 2022-23 competition

Belshazzar’s Feast ‘a tremendous wall of sound’ – Review

Saturday 11 June 2022

Covid and the absence of Russian musicians after the invasion of Ukraine made this another difficult year for the Sheffield International Concert season, yet it ended not with a whimper but a magnificent bang.

In fact, it was more of a tremendous wall of sound created by an orchestra nearly a hundred strong, augmented by trumpeters in the wings, and the combined forces of two of Yorkshires’ finest choirs, totalling 150 singers.

The occasion was a performance of William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, set to words from the Bible chosen by Osbert Sitwell of Renishaw Hall, just outside Sheffield and, to steal a line from this dramatic cantata, when it was weighed in the balance it was not found wanting.

The young conductor Finnegan Downie Dear extracted supercharged performances of the powerful and sometimes jazz-inflected score from both the band and the combined choirs, the Sheffield Philharmonic and Leeds Festival choruses.

The choir was particularly impressive after having sat patiently through the first half of the evening waiting for their moment, and the Sheffield Phil’s choirmaster Darius Battiwalla rightly appeared to share in the enthusiastic applause.

That was the highlight of an all-British evening which began with the atmospheric Sea Interludes, from Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, with the Halle sensitively catching the changing moods of the four sections, from still dawn to noisy storm.

The evening’s other offering was another piece of programme music, the young British composer Thomas Ades’ Inferno, written for a ballet version of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Being able to see dancers interpreting this piece would have helped the audience follow the musical storyline here, but overall this concert was an impressive climax to a problematic season.

Philip Andrews, Sheffield Telegraph

European links for Messiah

Saturday 02 April 2022 4BARSREST

Black Dyke Band will join forces with the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and choirs from France and Germany for a special performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ later this month. The band will be joined by three choirs for the special performance. Yorkshire Champions Black Dyke and the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus will welcome choirs from France and Germany on their mini-tour in April, culminating in a joint performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ on St George’s Day.

“This long-awaited trip was planned two years ago, but we had to postpone it when the pandemic struck” explained Matthew Morgan, who sings with both French and Sheffield choirs and organised the visit. “Fingers crossed that nothing stands in the way of it happening this time!”

The three choirs will join Black Dyke at Sheffield City Hall on Saturday 23rd April for the performance of Handel’s famous oratorio. “We are thrilled to be working with Black Dyke on this multi-national project’ said Chorus Chair Paul Henstridge. “This version isn’t performed very often, and it’s such a privilege to be able to sing it with one of the best bands in the world with our friends from France and Germany.”

The concert will feature some of its arias being performed for the first time in this realisation, including ‘How Beautiful are the Feet’ arranged by Chorus Music Director Darius Battiwalla. “Darius created this brass arrangement during the coronavirus lock down and recorded it with Black Dyke and soprano Catrin Pryce-Jones’ explained Chorus president Rachel Copley,

The joint concert echoes a visit made by the Sheffield choir a few years ago, when they joined the Philharmonischer Chor Bochum in a performance of ‘Messiah’ to celebrate the opening of Bochum’s brand new concert hall. The visit includes a tour of Sheffield Town Hall, hosted by the Lord Mayor, as well as trips to York and Haddon Hall.

Tickets for the event on Saturday 23rd April (7.00pm), are available from the City Hall.

For details see www.sheffieldphil.org or www.sheffieldcityhall.co.uk

and https://ensemblevocalperigueux.fr/tduk2022

Read the article in online brass publication 4BARSREST

Chorus welcome French and German visitors

29 March 2022

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus are looking forward to welcoming choirs from France and Germany for a mini-tour of Yorkshire in April, culminating in a joint performance of Handel’s Messiah with the world-famous Black Dyke Band on St George’s Day, in the presence of the Lord Mayor.

‘This long-awaited trip was planned two years ago, but we had to postpone it when the pandemic struck’ explained bass Matthew Morgan, who sings with both French and Sheffield choirs and organised the visit. ‘Fingers crossed that nothing stands in the way of it happening this time!’

The three choirs will come together at the City Hall on Saturday 23 April for this very special performance of the brass version of Handel’s Messiah. ‘We are thrilled to be working with Black Dyke on this multi-national project’ said Chorus Chair Paul Henstridge, ‘The brass Messiah isn’t often performed, and it’s such a privilege to be able to sing it with one of the best bands in the world, fresh from their recent win at the Yorkshire Championships, and with our friends from France and Germany’.

The joint concert echoes a similar visit made by the Sheffield choir a few years ago, when they joined the Philharmonischer Chor Bochum in a performance of Messiah to celebrate the opening of Bochum’s brand new concert hall. ‘The sister city partnership with Sheffield is our oldest’ said Mayor Erica Stahl, ‘It was founded just five years after the end of the war and … many friends have been formed thanks to it’.

Members of the French choir, with whom the Chorus enjoyed a mini-tour of France in 2018, are driving to Sheffield ‘Just in case Covid messes up air travel’ explained Matthew. ‘We’re looking forward to bringing a mostly French programme, including choral and organ works by Faure, Gounod and Charpentier, to Malton in Yorkshire and Buxton in Derbyshire’.

The visit includes a tour of Sheffield Town Hall, hosted by the Lord Mayor, as well as trips to York and Haddon Hall. Visiting choristers will stay with members of the Sheffield Chorus, who are looking forward to returning the superb hospitality enjoyed during their trips to France and Germany.

Tickets for this very special Messiah on Saturday 23 April at 7pm, are available from the City Hall. Catch the French Choir, Musical Director Patrick Hilliard and organist Christopher Hainsworth, at St Michael’s Church, Malton, Yorkshire on Friday 22^nd April, and St John The Baptist Church, Buxton, Derbyshire, on Sunday 24^th, both at 7pm, paying at the door.

For details see www.sheffieldphil.org or https://www.sheffieldcityhall.co.uk/event/messiah-23April2022 and https://ensemblevocalperigueux.fr/tduk2022

Chorus collect almost £2,000 for Ukraine Appeal

Monday 14 March 2022

At last Saturday’s Rachmaninov concert almost £2,000 was collected for the Ukraine Appeal. The concert, featuring Rachmaninov’s All Night Vigil, in St Mark’s Church Broomhill, was dedicated to the memory of Margaret Staniforth, a much-missed second soprano who had been a member for many years until her death in 2019, and to the people of Ukraine.

‘We are thrilled with the generosity of our audience’ said Chorus Chair Paul Henstridge, ‘We were very keen to present Rachmaninov’s beautiful work as a symbol of our solidarity and friendship with the Ukrainian people. Margaret’s widower Kim attended the concert as an honoured guest, and was very pleased that the concert was also be offered in friendship with the Ukrainian people.’

The Chorus started working on Rachmaninov’s haunting All Night Vigil during the lock-down, rehearsing online from their own homes following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, for a performance that was scheduled to take place last year but which had to be postponed. The programme began with beautiful but rarely-heard songs by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, sung by Plymouth-born mezzo-soprano Charlotte Badham accompanied by Chorus pianist Rachel Fright.

The retiring collection will be donated to the Red Cross Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Appeal.

Music Director gives on-line recital for Yorkshire Day

Friday 31 July 2020

To celebrate Yorkshire Day 2020, East Leeds FM radio / Chapel FM Arts Centre will broadcast a special programme live from Leeds Town Hall on Saturday 1 August from 12 noon.

The programme will include a special concert by Chorus Music Director and Leeds City Organist Darius Battiwalla, on the Town Hall’s magnificent organ.

This will be the first live performance at the Town Hall since the Coronavirus Lock-down – though obviously with no live audience.

Darius’s Yorkshire Day programme features music which has been written by composers with a direct link to Yorkshire and will include an interview with composer Philip Wilby, whose oratorio The Holy Face was performed by the Chorus a few years ago.

Darius will introduce the pieces as he would normally do in his much-loved Monday lunchtime organ concerts at Leeds Town Hall.

Click here to read more and to listen to the broadcast.