A video recording of the Chamber Choir was recently entered into a new online competition, Britain’s Top Choirs, the final of which aired on the evening of Sunday 12 March. We had no idea how the choir would fare in an open competition that also included adult choirs, but the choir’s recording of “Shenandoah” from the Autumn Concert showcased some of its best singing this year before the entry deadline of 10 February.
We were therefore delighted to learn on the night that the Chamber Choir had scored highly with the professional judges – Hilary Campbell, Neil Ferris & Manvinder Rattan – and was one of the Top 5 choir performances showcased in the final. The choir’s video performance was then broadcast on the night, allowing an audience of 100s online to vote for their favourite choir.
It was clear that the choir’s singing proved popular with the audience, only missing out on the top audience spot by 1.5% of the vote. Combined with the judges’ scores, this placed the Chamber Choir in overall third place, only 0.09% behind the second placed choir.
Director of Music, Peter Davis, was interviewed live during the stream. “I am so proud of the Choir’s achievement, being the only School choir in the Top 5 nationally. To only lose out to the National Youth Training Choir (drawing pupils of a similar age from across the whole country) and an elite adult chamber choir is a massive achievement. The judges were clearly impressed with the standard of the choir, and were amazed to hear that they only rehearse for 1 hour per week.”
Congratulations to all the singers involved!
