On 3 September 2025 we will start rehearsing for our December 2025 concert.

We will be rehearsing Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

We will start rehearsals in the Music Lecture Theatre at UCS on Wednesday 3 September and we are planning a twelve-week term concluding with a concert in the Great Hall at UCS on Saturday 6 December. If you would like to join us, please sign up here or simply come along to our first rehearsal.

If you are on our mailing list, you should already have received an email with an invitation to register for the term – if you cannot find it, please check your spam folder. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to sing with us, please contact us via this website.

Concert and tickets

The concert is on Saturday, 6th December in The Great Hall, University College School, Frognal, Hampstead NW3 6XH.

Tickets will be available from October 2025 .

Rehearsal Schedule

A rehearsal schedule showing what we will be learning in future weeks can be found here.

Don’t worry if you miss the occasional rehearsal or join the term a bit late – you should use the learning resources identified on this page to catch up.

Scores

We will use the New Novello edition, copies of which are available on-line and from local music retailers.

Subscriptions

The subscription instalment for this term is £105.  The subscription  will become due on 11 September, immediately after the second rehearsal of term. Subscriptions for the year have been raised by £5 from last year, primarily to cover the costs of increases for Simon and Ed whose fees have remained the same for the last two years.

Details of how choir membership works can be found on our website here. In summary, the subscription is set for the year at £260 but is charged on a termly basis based on participation. Subscription includes membership of Hampstead Chorus which entitles members to attend and vote at general meetings of Hampstead Chorus, giving them a say in its governance.

Warm-up exercises

All our rehearsals start with warm-up vocal exercises.  Simon has prepared videos to help those who are less familiar with the exercises:

Simon’s regular warm up exercises

If you want to keep your voice going between rehearsals, these are the tools to use.

Learning aids

Many of the learning sites provide aids to help you learn your part.  We find the following to be particularly useful:

  • Cyberbass – You can listen to individual voice parts or all voice parts, you can select a short passage to listen to over and over again, or you can speed up and slow down recordings.  This is a very flexible tool, but you cannot download the recordings.
  • John F’s Rehearsal Files – John Fletcher has an extraordinary range of music on his site, with individual files for each voice part or for all parts together. You need to set up a membership – this is free for out of copyright music.  There is a paid for option if you want to access copyrighted music – there are various options, but the individual rate for one year is £10.  The advantage of John Fletcher’s site is that you can download the recordings to use offline.
  • Saffron Choral Prompt – you can order CDs at a modest price from saffronchoralprompt.co.uk 01799 586269.  You tell them the name of our choir (for a discount); which piece of music and name of publisher; your voice part.  You will receive a useful (though not beautiful) recording of a voice singing your exact line with a piano accompaniment playing the other parts.  This is clearly most useful for large scale works.
  • Some choir members find Choralia to be a useful source of learning aids.
  • Recommended recordings include Bryn Terfel with Paul Daniel, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and soloists Renée Fleming, Patricia Bardon, and John Mark Ainsley, as well as the 2024 Pappano live LSO Live recording with Ranganasha, Connolly, Clayton, and Finley.

In-person and online rehearsals

We have been rehearsing in the Music Lecture Room (MLT) and M7 since November 2021 and have been able to achieve good levels of ventilation. Depending on outside temperatures, it can get a bit chilly, but these are the best conditions we believe we can achieve in terms of infection management (other than singing outdoors!)

So going forward, here are a few reminders about rehearsal etiquette to reduce infection risk:

  1. We are continuing with live rehearsals, combined with Zoom rehearsals (hybrid model). We are regularly reviewing the situation for any signs of increased infection rates and are ready to take action as necessary.
  2. Please only attend live rehearsals if you are fully vaccinated. We ask that if you have any signs whatsoever which could indicate infection (with or without a positive test) you STAY AWAY from live rehearsal and attend by Zoom.

With these regulations in place, we feel confident to continue choir rehearsals, always mindful of the evolving situation and ready to react if necessary.

How does Hampstead Chorus Online work?

There will be plenty of help on hand but most members have found it quite straightforward:

  • download ‘Zoom’ to your computer in advance of the session – it’s free video conferencing software
  • each week you are sent a link via email from Hampstead Chorus, which you use to join that week’s Zoom session from 7.15pm for a 7.30pm start.
  • a point worth emphasising is that, when you sing in Zoom sessions the only person who can hear you is yourself.
  • If there are two of you in the same location, unless you are the same voice part, you may wish to sign in from two devices so that you are put in the right breakout room.  If you are sitting near each other, please ensure both devices are kept on mute otherwise there will be a horrible feedback noise.

It would be very helpful to let us know before the rehearsal if you intend to attend online.

Further information on setting up Zoom and what to expect can be found here.