Weekly Updates – Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus

Please log in to access the Members’ Area.

[private role=”subscriber”]

Scroll down for the latest weekly update, which will be uploaded every week on the date shown on the update (often Sunday but could be earlier). Scroll even further down for pdf files of each update for those who prefer to download and print it. If you do not receive the email you should:

read it on this page
check you have informed us of a change of email – by sending a message to to ensure that your details are amended on the Membership database. You need to do this if any of your contact details change, please!
check that your email is not mistakenly marking the update as junk and returning it to sender. It may not even get as far as the Junk or Spam folder, unfortunately! To stop this, you need to add either or or the whole domain “@sheffieldphil.org” to your “safe senders” list if you can. If you use Outlook, open an email from Anne (or Marianne), then on the Home tab, click “Junk”, then “Never Block Sender’s Domain”. If you don’t use Outlook then look up how to set up safe senders for your email, either in its help facility or on Google. All emails are likely to have similar systems.

Updated Tuesday 2 September 2025

NEW and/or IMPORTANT ITEMS (scroll down for further details)

Members Area: User Name member Password M4hler8D@rius22
Next rehearsal is Tue 9 Sep 2025; £5 music hire, new member ‘buddies’ needed
Rehearsal tracks and recordings for next concert on website
IMPORTANT – we still need a Secretary and a tenor voice rep!
Georgina’s workshop dates
Membership Survey (attachment)
Bill Smylie memorial service – still time to sign up
Jim Monach donation
Sam West event in Sheffield Wed 8 Oct 2025
Diary Dates – all concert dates now finalised
Change of contact details – tell us via

First rehearsal Tue 9 Sep 2025

Our first rehearsal of the season is on Tuesday 9 September 2025 at 19.00 in St Andrew’s Psalter Lane Church. We’ll start rehearsing for the 1 November concert so please try to be a bit early to collect all the music. The hire charge will be £5, correct change if you can.

Message from Sally Turnbull: “Good news! There are about 16 potential new singers so far wanting to try a rehearsal from 9th September with a view to joining. If you feel you could help by ‘buddying’ someone from your voice section to make them feel welcome in their first few visits please can you email me? Many thanks in anticipation. ”

The programme for the first concert is listed on our website at Sheffieldphil.org / Current season, with links to rehearsal tracks and recordings of most of the music at Members Area / Preparing the music

Chorus organisation – we urgently need a Secretary!

We now have someone to organise the concerts, helped by a small group, but really do need someone to take over the general Secretary duties when Anne Adams steps down at the AGM. This is now a very much-reduced role from that undertaken by Anne and previous role holders, as many responsibilities and tasks have been allocated to others. In addition, Anne will have completed the rehearsal set-up for the coming season, and the AGM organisation and papers, so the role will be more modest in the first year of taking over. In fact, in future someone other than the Secretary could organise the AGM which is a ‘once a year’ role, leaving even less for the Secretary to do. Anne has created templates or blueprints for virtually every task, and a calendar of when they can be done, making the role very straight forward. She is happy to help the role holder throughout the year, of course. See Members Area / Chorus Organisation for details of the responsibilities.

If you think you might be able to take over as Secretary from October onwards, please contact any member of the committee as soon as possible.

Georgina’s workshops

Education and Outreach Officer Georgina Hulse will run a series of workshops to help participants with choral singing techniques, including sight singing, and to prepare for up-coming concerts; content can be tailored to suit those who sign up. All are welcome, including people who are trying us out. The workshops run from 18.30 to 18.55, ie just before the main rehearsal, in the back room at St Andrew’s Psalter Lane church. Below are the dates for the coming season; email Georgina at

Sep 16, 23 & 30, Oct 7,14 & 21, Nov 4,11,18 & 25
Feb 10,17 & 24, Mar 3, 10 & 17, Apr 14, 21 & 28, May 5

Membership Survey – message from Darius

All members should have received an invitation from Darius and Marianne, to complete a survey. It’s been designed to help Darius and the committee and other helpers to plan, organise and improve the choir. The invitation is reproduced below and the list of past concerts is attached. The link and attachment are also on the website at Members Area / Weekly Update

“I hope you’ve all had a great summer and are looking forward to being back in action next week! It’s a very busy season with a lot of exciting music and we hope you’ll commit to as many events as you can. It would be really helpful to us if you could follow the link below and complete the membership survey. It covers pretty much every aspect of how the choir is run, both musical and non-musical, and is really helpful for us in planning future events and how we can continue to improve our organisation. There are quite a lot of questions but it’s your choir and we’d like to take all opinions into account, so we really appreciate your time! https://forms.office.com/e/wxUUn7Bhik Best wishes, Darius and Marianne”

Bill Smylie memorial service – still time to volunteer

Bill’s memorial service is at 12.45 on Wednesday 3 September 2025, at St Andrew’s United Reformed Church, Upper Hanover Street, Sheffield S3 7RQ. The Chorus has agreed to sing at the service, both to help the now extremely small church choir to lead the congregational singing, and to sing a piece by ourselves as a tribute to Bill. Given Bill’s amazing contribution to the Chorus as a former trustee, choir historian and of course as a second tenor (see below), it would be good to pay tribute with a well-balanced representative choir from among our members, so please volunteer if you haven’t already – email Georgina Hulse at

Darius has suggested that we sing one of the following, depending on numbers and balance of voice parts: Rutter’s Gaelic Blessing, Number 6 from the Rachmaninov Vespers (as sung at Jim’s memorial service) or a piece from Faure’s Requiem. Georgina Hulse will conduct; many thanks Georgina. There will be just one rehearsal, at 11.45 on the day, in the church.

Bill passed away, aged 100, during the summer break. Many members will have known Bill, who with a phenomenal 73 years with the Chorus was our longest-standing member. He joined the chorus in March 1947 and sang second tenor with us until the pandemic. He was our Chair for a decade (1980 to 1990) and published a history of the Chorus in 2010. He sang in performances conducted by Thomas Beecham, John Barbirolli, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Adrian Boult, Daniel Barenboim, Charles Groves and with Kathleen Ferrier and Janet Baker, among many, many others. He was very keen on wildlife and conducted a series of studies of the effect of birds foot trefoil (a wildflower) on the distribution of butterflies, enlisting help from various members of the Chorus at various locations in Sheffield and the Peak District.

Jim Monach donation

Jane Monach has very kindly sent a donation of £500 in Jim’s name. This will be used to help fund the Tenor Bursary scheme, which Jim wholeheartedly supported. We have thanked Jane on the choir’s behalf. The two tenors Joe Banerjee and Chris Kingdom, who were with us last season, are joining us via the scheme again this season, which is fantastic.

Invitation to an evening with Sam West Wed 8 Oct 2025 19.00 for 19.45

Jane Monach has sent the Chorus an invitation to “An evening in the company of Samuel West” which is being organised as a fundraiser for Olivia Blake (Labour) and to support the Campaign for the Arts, a non-partisan charity of which Sam is a trustee. Sam, who you’ll know is one of our Patrons, is going to talk about his life, career as an actor and artistic director at the Crucible – and hopefully also about his parents, Tim West and Prunella Scales. The event is in Crookes Club on Wednesday 8th October, with doors opening at 7pm for a 7:45pm start. Tickets are £20, available online from Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-in-the-company-of-samuel-west-tickets-1643876521929?aff=oddtdtcreator

Friends and families are welcome – it should be a fascinating and entertaining evening.

Rehearsal schedule

Darius has completed the rehearsal schedule for next season and it will be uploaded to his website as soon as possible – at http://www.dariusbattiwalla.com/currentschedule.pdf,. There’s also a link from the members area of the Chorus website (in Rehearsals). See also Diary dates (below and Chorus website at Members Area / Diary dates)

Diary dates (dates in italics are voluntary electives; attendance expected at all others)

Confirmed concert, piano and tutti rehearsal dates, times and locations, are posted on the Chorus website as soon as they become available, at Members Area / Diary dates

2025-26 – all six official season dates now confirmed (see below)

Saturday 1 November 2025, St Marie’s Cathedral, organ 150th anniversary concert. Jonathan Dove Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars, Cassie White (second prize winner in the Young Composer Competition) for music like the sea, Stanford Blue Bird, organ solo (Darius), Coleridge Taylor Lea Shore & Summer is Gone, Balfour Gardiner Evening Hymn INTERVAL Lili Boulanger Hymne au Soleil, Durufle motets, organ solo, Jean Langlais Messe Solonnelle (double organ). Soloists from choir. Organists: Neil Taylor, James Mitchell and Darius. There will be seating for the choir when we’re not singing (and for those who need it on the altar).
Tuesday 9 December 2025, City Hall. Halle orchestra live accompaniment to big-screen showing of the film “Home Alone”; we’ll sing the main theme and the in-film carols
Saturday 13 December 2025, 30, City Hall (SICS) Carol concert with Black Dyke Band, BBC presenter Josie D’Arby, programme to include a carol composed by Rachel Fright. Carol concert running order is at Concert Arrangements
Sunday 14 December 2025, 2pm cathedral, St Luke’s carol service – date confirmed
Friday 6 February 2026, 19.00, City Hall (SICS) Arvo PartLament with Manchester Camerata. Compulsory conductor piano rehearsal Tue 27 Jan 2026
Saturday 21 March 2026 – Come and Sing event – Vivaldi Gloria plus other works
Friday 9 May 2026, Crookes Social Club, SPC Ceilidh plus Pie and Pea supper, date confirmed
Sunday 7 June 2026, City Hall, 16.00 (SICS) Elijahwith Halle conducted by Matthew Hamilton

*SICS = concert is part of the Sheffield International Concert Season

Darius concerts

See Darius’s website at http://www.dariusbattiwalla.com/concerts/concerts-2025.html

Reminder – what to do if locked out of the website

If you are unfortunate enough to be locked out of the website (usually due to typing in the wrong password three times), rest assured – it is set such that you can try again after just 5 minutes! The user name and password are at the top of every weekly update.

Rehearsal tracks from Choraline

If you purchase rehearsal tracks from Choraline, please note that we have a discount of 20%. To claim, use code SHEFF and type ‘SINGER’ in the discount code on the basket page. If ordering by telephone, quote these when asked.

Singing opportunities

All up-coming opportunities for singing locally are on the Chorus website, along with a list of wider singing opportunities compiled by Phil Harrison and provided by John Morgan, in the Members Area, Information, Singing opportunities.

What’s On

Classical Sheffield’s website lists all local concerts: https://classicalsheffield.org.uk/events

What to do if your contact details change

If any of your contact details change, including address, email or telephone number, please send a message to to ensure that your details are amended on the Membership database and that you continue to receive the weekly update.

Weekly updates, Chorus & Classical Sheffield websites/passwords, WhatsApp

If ever you don’t receive the weekly update, please read it on the website at Members Area / Weekly Updates.

The Members Area lists rehearsal details, rehearsal notes and links to recordings, concert and re-audition arrangements, as well as dates for the following season, our official stage procedure, Darius’ rehearsal schedule, how to look after your voice etc.

The Chorus WhatsApp group is at SPC Social. Please don’t post personal or music-related details about other SPC members or ex-members without their permission!

Contact emails

These are all listed at Members Area / Chorus Contacts

SPC Update for Tuesday 2 September 2025