Leeds Festival Chorus

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Leeds Festival Chorus
Seat: United KingdomUnited Kingdom Leeds
Founding: 1858
Genus: mixed choir
Founder: William Spark
Head : Simon Wright
Voices : 170 ( SATB )
Website : www.leedsfestivalchorus.co.uk

The Leeds Festival Chorus is a mixed choir from Leeds , West Yorkshire , England with approximately 170 members.

history

The Leeds Festival Chorus was founded in 1858, when Queen Victoria the Leeds Town Hall opened. He sang at the first Leeds Festival for Classical Music and has been recomposed for the festivals that have followed. The choir became independent in 1985 and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008 with the world premiere of a commissioned work by Judith Bingham . In February 2003 the chorus sang the choral part from Mozart's Requiem in the British premiere of the ballet Requiem !! by Birgit Scherzer for the Northern Ballet Theater . In December 2007 the Handel Messiah choir sang again at Leeds Town Hall with the Northern Sinfonia. The work was first performed by the choir at the same location shortly after the Town Hall opened in 1858.

The repertoire includes works by JS Bach , Beethoven , Berlioz , Sir Peter Maxwell Davies , Elgar , Hindemith , Mahler , Mozart , Poulenc , Rossini , Schubert , Richard Strauss , Schönberg , Tallis , Verdi . The Leeds Festival Chorus has worked with the English Chamber Orchestra , the Hallé Orchestra , the BBC Symphony Orchestra , the Northern Sinfonia , the Opera North Orchestra and the London Chamber Orchestra . Commissioned works for the choir were Antonín Dvořák's St. Ludmilla and Edward Elgar's Caractacus as well as William Walton's Belshazzar’s Feast , which premiered under the direction of Sir Malcolm Sargent .

In addition to the concerts in Leeds Town Hall , e.g. Partly as a contribution to the Leeds International Concert Season , the choir has performed in the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, as well as in York Minster and the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of the BBC Proms and in Venice in summer 2013. The choir can occasionally be heard on BBC Radio 3 .

The Leeds Festival Chorus was u. a. directed by Arthur Sullivan , Thomas Beecham , John Barbirolli , Carlo Maria Giulini , Jascha Horenstein , Hans Richter , Pierre Boulez , Charles Mackerras , Colin Davis , John Eliot Gardiner , Yan Pascal Tortelier , Mark Elder , Roger Norrington , John Lubbock and Andrew Davis . Simon Wright is currently the conductor and artistic director of the Leeds Festival Chorus.

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