FYC in London world premiere

On Tuesday, 9th May FYC’s Junior Choir - along with some members of the Senior Choir - took part in the world premiere performance of Ian Fletcher’s oratorio Jonah, based on the biblical story. It is scored for a full symphony orchestra, an adult chorus of about 100, a children’s choir and four soloists.

The concert took place at London’s Cadogan Hall, where the choir had the opportunity to perform alongside the National Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Chorus and professional soloists. Altogether there were approximately 200 participants!

For most members of the choir, this was their first London performance in a professional setting. Singer Lucy said, ‘It was very exciting and a new experience for me to sing with a professional orchestra and singers’.

As always, FYC rose to the occasion and contributed to a fantastic performance, which was very well received by the audience, resulting in a standing ovation. Well done FYC!

FYC Senior Choir triumphs in Hull!

On 27th April, Farnham Youth Choir’s Senior Choir (FYC) arrived in Hull for the first ever Interkultur International Choir Competition to be held in the UK. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was also the choir’s first international choral competition since 2019. The choir competed against choirs from as far afield as Finland, South Africa and Turkey. In total, 27 choirs from 10 countries took part.  

Led by their artistic director Patrick Barrett and accompanied by Matthew Rickard, FYC competed - alongside adult choirs - in the ‘Sacred Choral Music a cappella’ category and came away with a silver award. They also competed in the ‘Youth Choirs of equal voices’ category, winning the category trophy with gold!

After nearly 40 years of choral excellence, Farnham Youth Choir has developed into a family of choirs that supports children to achieve extraordinary things through a shared love of singing. FYC has previously won international competitions from the World Choir Games (2006, China) to double gold medals at recent European Choir Games (2015, Germany and 2019, Sweden). The choir were delighted to uphold their reputation as one of the UK’s leading youth choirs and also to have the opportunity to meet other choirs from all over the world.

Singer, Freya, said, ‘Competing in Hull was so much fun. The reward of winning the youth choir category after working hard all term made me feel on top of the world.’ 

Co-Chair of Trustees, Melanie Hancox said, ‘watching this group of singers, some of whom have been in FYC for years and others, only months, work so hard and raise the level of their performance was inspirational. There is no doubt that events like these change lives – none of our singers will forget what they achieved this weekend.’

Artistic Director, Patrick Barrett said, ‘the International Choral Competition in Hull was an inspirational experience. Seeing the incredible talent from across the globe helped us to raise our game and celebrate the brilliant voices of Farnham on the world stage.’

The next date in FYC’s competition calendar is the Concours Choral International taking place in Provence in July 2023. Local people can support the choir’s competitive efforts, by making a donation at fyc.org.uk/donate or wishing us luck at our Facebook page, facebook.com/farnhamyouthchoir. Without the support of many local people and organisations, we wouldn’t be able to give our young singers such transformative opportunities.

Senior Choir takes a step closer to The World Choir Games 2024

The weather may have been cold, but there was a very warm atmosphere in The Spire Church at 5pm on Saturday 4 March! The talented members of Farnham Youth Choir put on a free teatime concert (plus tea and cake) in order to raise money for their attendance at The World Choir Games in Auckland, New Zealand in July 2024.  

The extremely varied programme featured small vocal groups performing well-known songs by ABBA and Billy Joel, alongside solo performances by the singers, ranging from Mendelssohn to the Lithuanian song Paukščiai and even a new composition, written and performed by a choir member. Also included were instrumental pieces such as Debussy’s lovely Clair de lune played by FYC accompanist, Matthew Rickard. 

It was fantastic that the concert was so well supported and overall the event raised a very welcome £1200, taking the choir one step closer to their goal.

Farnham Youth Choir bags £1000 from Tesco’s community grant scheme

Farnham Youth Choir will receive £1000 that we will use to support our young singers to compete at the International Choral Competition in Hull in Spring 2023.

Co-Chair of Trustees, Melanie Hancox, said, “this grant helps to ensure that all our young singers can compete in the Interkultur International Choral Competition. FYC is a proudly inclusive choir that works hard to make sure that all young people with the interest and drive to become world-class choral singers, are able to achieve their ambitions. We’re extremely grateful for this boost to our fundraising.”

Singer, Lily, said, “winning gold medals at the European Choir Games in Gothenburg felt like winning the Olympics. It was an experience I’ll never forget.”

Claire de Silva, Tesco’s Head of Community, said: “Tesco Community Grants help support local good causes like Farnham Youth Choir and especially those projects supporting young people, those providing food, and local causes close to our colleagues’ hearts.”

Tesco Community Grants is run in partnership with community charity Groundwork, who has awarded grants to thousands of local community projects every year.

Tesco’s Community Grants scheme – previously Tesco Bags of Help - has already provided over £100 million to more than 50,000 projects across Britain. Funding is available to community groups and charities looking to fund local projects that bring benefits to communities. To find out more visit www.tesco.com/communitygrants.

New recording: Herstory out 1st March

We are very excited to announce the release of our latest recording: 'Herstory', coming out on 1st March. This mini-album consists of the three songs written by our composer in residence team for 2022, Russell Hepplewhite and Helen Eastman. The three songs each feature inspiring women scientists from history: Mary Anning, palaeontologist, Caroline Herschel, astronomer and comet-finder and Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan, the so-called 'human computers' who calculated NASA's missions to the moon in the 1950s. The songs are: ‘Sea Shores’ about Anning, ‘Comet Crazy’ about Herschel and ‘In the Numbers’ about the NASA mathematicians.

Senior Choir singing ‘Sea Shores’ to Mary Anning’s statue

The whole period of Russell and Helen’s residency has been extremely enriching for our three choirs. Composer and librettist both came to meet our singers and answered some really thought-provoking questions about writing music and words. The three songs had their world premiere at our summer concert at the Menuhin Hall back in June 2022 and ‘Comet Crazy’ featured in our inaugural Singing Spree in the same month. Then all three choirs worked hard on the recordings in the weeks that followed. The Senior Choir had the added joy of being able to sing ‘Sea Shores’ to Anning’s recently unveiled statue in Lyme Regis back in the summer as part of their summer tour. We hope you’re going to enjoy these songs as much as we do and hope that you will add them to your playlists from 1st March on Spotify and YouTube.

We would also like to warmly thank Alton School for the loan of their drama studio as a location for these recordings. Without their generosity, the recording of these songs would have been impossible. www.altonschool.co.uk

Singing Spree 2023 - sign up now!

Farnham Youth Choir are pleased to announce that this year’s Singing Spree will take place on the morning of Friday, 23rd June 2023 at the Farnham Maltings. The Spree will follow the same format as the inaugural event last year, in which 120 schoolchildren from Farnham were treated to performances by FYC’s Senior, Junior and Training Choirs. Once again, this year pupils will also be participating in singing workshops with all three of FYC’s music team: Patrick Barrett, Margaret O’Shea and Claire Robins.

Places are limited so if the Year Two children at your school would like to take part, please email Community@fyc.org.uk