Friday 15 November 2024, 7pm Sheffield City Hall 

• DEBUSSY Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
• BOULANGER Psalm 130: De Profundis (Out of the Depths)

• SAINT-SAЁNS Fantaisie in Eb major for organ
• SAINT-SAЁNS Symphony No.3, “Organ”

Our season in Sheffield will start with a fantastic concert featuring works by French composers, in the City Hall with Resident Orchestra the Halle, award-winning conductor Delyana Lazarova and our own Darius Battiwalla playing contrasting pieces by  Saint-Saens on the magnificent City Hall organ.

Delyana Lazarova, winner of the inaugural Siemens Hallé International Conductor’s Competition, will begin this concert with Debussy’s sensuous evocation of the poet Mallarmé’s dreams and desires of a faun. Delyana will then directs the massed forces of the Hallé, Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, a rising RNCM star and the stunning mezzo-soprano, Hanna Hipp, in Lili Boulanger’s ominous setting of Psalm 130, widely believed to be a reaction to the outbreak of World War One. Written from her sickbed in the year before her untimely death aged just 24, the work formed her own personal requiem and reflects her grief, anger and despair.

In the second half Chorus Musical Director and leading organist Darius Battiwalla will pull out all the stops in music by Saint-Saёns. His first published organ work, Fantaisie, has two contrasting movements: one, full of elegance and charm and the other, strong and confident. The concert concludes with his monumental, fascinatingly-textured “Organ” Symphony. – a very popular work that will leave you uplifted and exhilarated in equal measure.

The Hallé

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus
Delyana Lazarova conductor
Hanna Hipp mezzo-soprano
RNCM vocalist tenor
Darius Battiwalla organ

Pre-Concert Talk with BBC Broadcaster Trisha Cooper: 6pm

Tickets from £22.95, students and u-18s £10.50, available online and from the City Hall box office.

Special offer – gather 10 friends and family together and book at the same time for just £10 per ticket – no matter where you sit!

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Saturday 14 December 2024 Sheffield City Hall at 2.30pm

Christmas Concert with Black Dyke Band

A Christmas tradition like no other! The Black Dyke Band and Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus return once again for this wonderful seasonal celebration with carols for choir, singalongs for the audience and gems for the band. Presented by the multi-talented broadcaster, presenter, actor and author, Zeb Soanes, who will guide us through a programme that includes perennial favourites such as Sleigh Ride, Winter Wonderland and O Holy Night as well as newly-arranged pieces by one of the most successful of all living composers, John Rutter. There will also be local Sheffield carols, including Hail Smiling Morn, and a long-forgotten carol by Barnsley composer, Arthur Godfrey, entitled Christmas Eve.

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

Darius Battiwalla – conductor

Black Dyke Band

Nicholas Childs – conductor

Zeb Soames – presenter

Tickets are available from the City Hall box office, online, and on the door on the night.

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Saturday 23 March 2025, St Marie’s cathedral, Sheffield at 7.30pm

Fauré Requiem

The Chorus is pleased to be closing the Classical Sheffield Festival Weekend 2025 with a programme featuring two world premieres and Fauré ‘s beautiful Requiem in the wonderful acoustic of St Marie’s cathedral.

The first half will feature two new compositions by composer and broadcaster Stephen Johnston, who has made hundreds of radio programmes, most notably as presenter of Radio 3’s critically-acclaimed Discovering Music, where he explored pieces of music in detail, playing extracts to help discover what makes them work. Read more about Stephen on his website. Past programmes are available on the Discovering Music Archive

The first half will conclude with the world premiere of the winning works from the Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition. Set up by the Chorus in 2022, the competition is open to young people from Sheffield and is funded by a generous legacy bequeathed by Stella, who sang alto with the choir for many years before her death in 2019.

The second half features Gabriel Fauré ‘s much-loved Requiem, composed between 1887 and 1890. Fauré was extremely pleased with this work: “Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.”

• Stephen Johnston: two new works
• works by the winners of the 2nd Stella Jockel Young Composer Competition
• Interval
• Gabriel Faure: Requiem

Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

Darius Battiwalla – conductor

Ticket prices to be added. Available online (small booking fee), from choir members and on the door by cash or card,  Tickets for those in wheelchairs and with limited mobility are available , please email .

A Saturday in April or May 2025- to be confirmed

Come and Sing in Sheffield

Darius Battiwalla – Conductor

Sunday 8 June 2025 Sheffield City Hall at 4pm

Hayden Creation

The Sheffield International Concert Series season finale will leave you in awe of the wonders of creation. Under the baton of the Hallé’s charismatic Choral Director, Matthew Hamilton, the massed forces of the Hallé and the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus will be joined by a trio of exceptional soloists to breathe hope and joy into Haydn’s divine masterpiece, The Creation. The composer dreamt of a big sound with this oratorio – around 180 musicians and singers took part in the Viennese premiere – and this life-affirming work takes you on a musical journey from chaos and darkness to the creation of a new world. The perfect antidote to a world of despair and tyranny, this concert is a celebration of the beauty of life and the power of music.

The Hallé
Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus
Matthew Hamilton conductor
A trio of exceptional soloists

Pre-Concert Talk with BBC Broadcaster Trisha Cooper & Guests: 3pm

Tickets available from the City Hall box office, online, or on the door on the night.

Special offer – gather 10 friends and family together and book at the same time for just £10.50 per ticket – no matter where you sit!

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