JOIN US
If you would like to sing in a choir come and join Bingham and District Choral Society. We sing three concerts in each season, which starts in September. We don’t hold auditions – if you can read music it will make it easier for you, but we welcome anyone who is keen to sing!
Our concerts are usually in November, December (our Christmas special), May and July, although this schedule remains flexible. The best time to join is when we start to rehearse new works, usually in September and January. New members are invited to try us out for three weeks free of charge. If you are unsure, or haven’t sung in a choir before, we have a mentor for each singing part, who can help to get you orientated.
Our annual subscription is £130 (which can be paid in two instalments of £65) We are particularly keen to encourage younger members to join, so there is a special subscription rate of only £1 for those in full time education. Music can be hired for a nominal fee.
In addition to our musical activities, we enjoy a range of social activities which help us to raise funds so that we can continue to afford professional soloists and orchestral support for our concerts.
Contact us by e-mail for further information:
choir@binghamchoral.org.uk or ring Valerie Morgan (Choir Secretary) on 0115 933 2353.
Click here for an application form 2024/25
NB RETURNING MEMBERS A completed form is only required if contact or Gift Aid details have changed. Otherwise please send payment only.
NEW MEMBERS We are happy to allow 3 weeks to settle in before payment is due. Please send completed form only.
REHEARSALS
Rehearsals take place on Wednesdays at 7:15pm, Carnarvon Primary School, Nursery Road, Bingham, NG13 8EH. If you have always wanted to join a choir then why not come along and see how rehearsals work. If you don’t know what voice part you sing we can quickly establish that so we can make sure you are sitting with others in the same voice range. We are always short of male tenors!
Janet Chapman, a longstanding member and now our Chair, describes how she has benefited from being part of the choir
” I had done no singing since student days but by joining Bingham at a friend’s suggestion, I rediscovered the fulfilment it gives, not only for the uplift, challenges and fun of regular rehearsals, but the deep joy of getting to know and better understand wonderful works of music as well as having the satisfaction and reward of performing the pieces in concert.”
FUTURE CONCERTS .
2024
Christmas Concert
7.30pm Saturday 14th December, Bingham Methodist Centre. Tickets £12 adults, £2 under-16s.
2025
7.30pm Saturday 5th April, Bingham Parish Church. Brahms German Requiem
13th June, Summer lunchtime concert, Southwell Minster. Time and programme to be announced.
PREVIOUS SATURDAY WORKSHOPS
A Singing Day with Bob Chilcott, Saturday 24th February 2024
After pausing our Singing Days during Covid, we are delighted to announce that the great Bob Chilcott will be running a workshop for BDCS. Registration details can be downloaded from this link:
The works we will be singing all come from Bob Chilcott’s extesive catalogue of choral pieces and include:
‘Five things that changed the world’
‘The Little Jazz Mass’,
‘The Lily and the Rose’
‘Like a Singing Bird’
For those that lke to purchase copies of the music then please order prior to the workshop. We are just awaiting confirmation of the discounted prices.
A Singing Day with Ellie Martin, Saturday 16th February 2019
We have got to know Ellie Martin and her dynamic, engaging style of conducting through recent joint performances with Mansfield Choral Society where Ellie is Musical Director. We were therefore delighted when Ellie agreed to run our annual BDCS Singing Day this year. It took place in the beautifully renovated State Chamber at Southwell Minster during a spell of extraordinary sunny and warm weather. This put everyone in an upbeat mood, which was enhanced during the day by Ellie’s choice of music: Zimbe by Alexander L’Estrange and English Folksongs. While we were reasonably well-acquainted with the latter, Zimbe took us out of our choral society comfort zone with its African texts, infectious rhythms and complex harmonies. Everyone seemed to find the challenge exhilarating. ‘Very enjoyable – and exhausting!’, said one participant. We are very grateful to Ellie for creating a great learning experience and making it such fun, to Angela Foan, our excellent accompanist, and to Alex Patterson who gave us valuable solo support.
Comments from ‘A Singing Day with Marcus Farnsworth’ Saturday 10th March 2018
Marcus Farnsworth provided great insight into singing technique, in particular the importance of breathing correctly, posture, relaxation, and pronunciation. It was a challenging day with two works in German and one in Latin so we had the duel challenge of sight reading sacred pieces that most were unfamiliar with whilst harnessing our choral technique.
The day was structured around J.S. Bach’s ‘O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht’ (Lord Jesus Christ my life and life); Brahms ‘Geistliches Lied’, and Edvard Grieg’s ‘Ave Maris stella’ (Hail, bright star of heaven). The day concluded with a short performance of the three works to a small but appreciative audience of friends and family who had come to support the participants.
Our thanks go to accompanist Ed Turner for his accomplished playing, Guy Turner for being Master of Ceremonies, and of course Marcus Farnsworth for a superb signing experience.
Photographs and comments from the John Rutter Singing Day, Saturday 4th March 2017
(Photographs courtesy of Ira Unell).
“It was a real privilege to have the chance to sing with John Rutter; he is a superb facilitator and raconteur as well as an outstanding musician, and he is so right that people rarely get the chance just to sing good music, not prepare for a performance! His suggestions for improvement were so well paced and mostly limited to the morning when we could all expect to be fresher. And the Hallelujah chorus after lunch is the best solution I’ve come across to what I have usually heard described as ‘the graveyard slot’!”
