John Bradbury, who founded Hampstead Chorus as the UCS Centenary Choir in 2008, sadly died on 27 November 2021. Our sing-through of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, a piece we sang with John in 2009, was dedicated to his memory. John Bradbury with Simon Walton at our 10 year anniversary concert in 2018 John was born [...]
The Summer term is always a smaller event but often produces an excellent musical outcome and this year was no exception. At the suggestion of a choir member, we learned and performed The Revenge, a setting of a Tennyson poem by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford. The work tells the story of a naval [...]
Our summer programme will comprise works by Charles Villiers Stanford, including his stirring maritime choral work The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet, which sets to music a poem by Tennyson describing the sea battle in 1591 between a warship commanded by Sir Richard Grenville and a vastly larger Spanish fleet. We also hope to [...]
At our concert on 9 December, we performed the London premiere of James Francis Brown's choral work, The Heavens and the Heart. We found it a challenging sing, but the choir enjoyed his tunes, rhythms and the liveliness of the piece. Following the concert James wrote to us: Dear members of the Hampstead Chorus, Simon and Heather et [...]
Our 10th anniversary concert took place on 28 April 2018 with a performance of Handel's Messiah under the baton of our musical director, Simon Walton. Our original musical director, John Bradbury was in the audience. Simon's feedback to the choir included these kind words: "I thought you sang magnificently last night. All of the [...]
We are delighted that our 10th anniversary season, our first as a charity, is being supported by a range of businesses. We are particularly grateful to Anthony Fogden and his team at the Hampstead branch of Handelsbanken, who are our season supporters. You can find out more about their services here. We are also grateful [...]
If you have signed up for the Autumn 2017 term, you should have received links to learning material for The Heavens and the Heart - if you cannot find this link, look in your regular choir emails or ask one of the committee members. The text of this lovely piece is in Latin - [...]
Autumn Programme announcement Hampstead Chorus has recently agreed that its Autumn programme will include the London premiere of James Francis Brown’s The Heavens and the Heart, a 16 minute piece for choir, 2 horns in F, harp, and strings. James is a friend of our accompanist, Heather and her partner Tom. His work was a [...]