Farnham Youth Choir kicks off 40th anniversary season

Farnham Youth Choir, one of the world’s best youth choirs, is celebrating its 40th anniversary! Over the last four decades, children and young people have been inspired to come together and sing at the highest level, initially by FYC founder David Victor-Smith MBE and now under the direction of Patrick Barrett. The choir has won numerous awards and performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues.

The celebratory year kicks off with open rehearsals on 6th and 13th September where children and young people from school years 2-9 are invited to come and see what the choir is all about. If they enjoy themselves, children in school years 2-4 can immediately join the Training Choir and older children can audition for either the Junior Choir or the Senior Choir, where a limited number of places are available. The choir has a bursary scheme and is keen to include children from all backgrounds.

After that, celebrations get fully underway at our autumn concert right here in Farnham at St Andrew’s Church. Tickets are available from our website (fyc.org.uk). Various Christmas performances follow and in 2024, the choir invites alumni to join them at a gala concert in London on 9th March. The year culminates in the Senior Choir jetting off to Auckland, New Zealand, to compete in the Interkultur World Choir Games. It’s going to be an exciting year!

Co-Chair of Trustees, Melanie Hancox, said:

‘We’re so excited to be sharing our anniversary celebrations with our local community. Farnham Youth Choir has such deep roots in the town and we want to include as many people as possible in our celebrations.’

Artistic Director, Patrick Barrett, said:

‘Our anniversary year is going to be busy, but we’re very happy to have so many brilliant performance opportunities to offer our young people. It’s a great time to join one of our choirs.’

Budding singers who would like to go to an open rehearsal should visit fyc.org.uk/joinus.

FYC Singing Spree 2023 is a roaring success!

Farnham Youth Choir’s second annual Singing Spree took place at Farnham Maltings on Friday 23rd June, 2023, and was a roaring success! 300 Year 2 children from six local primary schools took part in the morning, which was led by FYC’s brilliant conductors Patrick Barrett, Margaret O’Shea and Claire Robins, accompanied by Susan Norman.

Many of the schools had already had a workshop visit from Claire Robins earlier this year and so had the opportunity to learn a new song, ‘There’s a dinosaur in my garden’ by Claire McCue, in advance. They had also been able to practise along with a video made by FYC’s Melanie Hancox, featuring the Training Choir. It was fantastic to hear the schools all come together and raise the roof with this catchy song, complete with actions!

The children also learnt some new songs on the day which they sang alongside FYC and were then treated to short performances from the three choirs. FYC Senior Choir’s (gold-medal-winning!) performance of ‘Joshua’ had the children particularly spellbound.

Our children loved every minute of it! We thoroughly enjoyed last year, but I think this year was even better. Thank you for an engaging and uplifting workshop.

St Peter’s C of E Primary School, Farnham

A fantastic morning of singing provided by such enthusiastic leaders!

St Mary’s Church of England (Aided) Infant School, Frensham

We were delighted that the Mayor of Farnham, Councillor Alan Earwaker, was also in attendance to present a donation from Farnham Town Council’s Community Grant towards this event, which was free for schools to attend.

All children in Years 2-4 (current Years 1-3) are invited to come along to FYC’s next open rehearsal on 28th June at 5.15pm at Farnham Maltings. Go to https://www.fyc.org.uk/join-us-tc to register.