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22-658: The BBC Singers is a professional British chamber choir , employed by the BBC . Its origins can be traced to 1924. One of the six BBC Performing Groups , the BBC Singers are based at the BBC Maida Vale Studios in London. The only full-time professional British choir, the BBC Singers feature in live concerts, radio transmissions, recordings and education workshops. The choir often performs alongside other BBC Performing Groups, such as

44-619: A collection of twenty Songs by Famous Russian Composers for Parlophone Records with the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing . The reviewer in The Gramophone wrote, "In the person of Hans Gellhorn Rosing found his best accompanist." Gellhorn was interned in Mooragh Camp on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien from 1939 to 1941. Ralph Vaughan Williams intervened to help get him released. He finally became

66-739: A lifelong association with the choir in 1964. Woodgate died in 1961. That same year, Peter Gellhorn took over the choir. He re-organised the professional contingent, scrapping the A–B division in favour of a single force of 28 voices, which was renamed the BBC Chorus. Following the appointment of John Poole as chorus master in 1972, the choir reverted to its previous name, the BBC Singers. The choir continued to broadcast regularly on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, but its long-established participation in The Daily Service had been curtailed to one appearance per week by

88-475: A naturalized citizen in 1947 and changed his name to Peter. Working with the Vic-Wells Opera during and after the war led to an invitation from David Webster to join the staff of Covent Garden Opera when it re-opened after the war. He became assistant to music director Karl Rankl and conducted there many times from June 1947 onward. During his later career he also conducted at Glyndebourne , and with

110-464: Is a small or medium-sized choir of roughly 8 to 40 singers (occasionally called "chamber singers"), typically singing classical or religious music in a concert setting. This is distinct from, for example, a church choir , which sings in religious services, or choirs specializing in popular music such as a barbershop chorus . This music-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Peter Gellhorn Gellhorn,

132-653: The BBC Symphony Orchestra , and is a regular guest at the BBC Proms . Broadcasts are made from locations around the country: London venues have included St Giles-without-Cripplegate , St John's, Smith Square and St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge . The BBC Singers perform with leading international orchestras and conductors. The choir has appeared by invitation at national events such as the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in Westminster Abbey. Former members of

154-558: The Carl Rosa Opera Company . From 1961 he became Director of the BBC Chorus (later BBC Singers), conducting them in works such as Holst 's The Cloud Messenger and Rubbra 's In Die et Nocte Canticum . In 1967 Gellhorn worked with Peter and Gillian Hunt to set up the annual educational music festival Opera Barga in central Italy, acting as the musical director. Gellhorn married the actress Olive Layton (1918-2009, daughter of

176-478: The BBC Singers' first Associate Composer, with the functions of composing new works each year for performance by the choir, and participating in workshops with young composers from schools, universities and music colleges. Judith Bingham was the next to fill this position, in 2004. Gabriel Jackson took the post in 2010. Subsequent composers-in-association with the BBC Singers have included Judith Weir and Roderick Williams. Chamber choir A chamber choir

198-613: The BBC Singers. Over its history, the BBC Singers has performed and commissioned more than a hundred new works. These include Gustav Holst 's The Morning of the Year (1927), Benjamin Britten 's A Boy was Born (1934), and works by Michael Berkeley , Sir Richard Rodney Bennett , John Casken , Sir Peter Maxwell Davies , Thea Musgrave , Edmund Rubbra , Robert Saxton , Sir John Tavener , Sir Michael Tippett and Iannis Xenakis . Select list of commissioned works: In 2002, Edward Cowie became

220-724: The Second World War, the choir was forced to relocate several times from its base in Maida Vale, briefly taking up residence in Bristol, Bangor and Bedford. In 1945, the choir gave the premiere of Francis Poulenc 's wartime cantata Figure humaine from the Concert Hall of Broadcasting House . After the war, from the late 1940s onwards, the BBC Singers began to tour across Europe, under the direction of conductors such as Herbert von Karajan , Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter . In England,

242-691: The Wireless Chorus, for performances where fewer singers were required. Guest conductors of both groups during these early years included Sir Edward Elgar , Igor Stravinsky , Arnold Schoenberg and John Barbirolli . In 1931, the Wireless Chorus was invited to perform at the Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music , the first time this event had been held in Britain. On appointment of Leslie Woodgate as general chorus master in 1934,

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264-589: The age of 15. After three years, Gellhorn arranged for Benjamin to continue his lessons in Paris with Olivier Messiaen , whom he had known for many years. As a young man in Berlin, Gellhorn was already composing, examples being the four movement Kleine Suite for oboe and piano (1932) and the String Quartet No 1 (1933-4), both in a highly chromatic though still tonal style. A second string quartet (1935, by which time he

286-509: The choir from 1995 to 2007, held the title of conductor laureate with the choir until his death in 2019. Bob Chilcott is the current principal guest conductor of the choir. David Hill was the most recent conductor from 2007 to 2017. Sofi Jeannin was a guest-conductor of the choir in January 2017. In May 2017, the BBC announced her appointment as the choir's next chief conductor, the first woman to hold

308-523: The choir it worked with George Enescu , Sir Thomas Beecham , Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky . From 1946, they became a regular feature of the BBC's new radio arts network, the Third Programme . During the middle years of the twentieth century, the choir premiered major works by Darius Milhaud , Frank Martin , Paul Hindemith , Gerald Finzi , Sir Michael Tippett , Pierre Boulez , Sir Arthur Bliss and Karol Szymanowski . Pierre Boulez began

330-479: The choir later in the year as part of its "new strategy" for classical music. Following public reactions in protest at this announcement, the BBC reversed this decision on 24 March. In February 2024, the BBC announced a new partnership between the BBC Singers and the Voces8 Foundation for future sustainability of the BBC Singers. In July 2024, the BBC announced the appointment of Jonathan Manners as director of

352-504: The early 1990s, after the Rev. David Winter (head of BBC religious broadcasting from 1982 to 1989) judged that its sound was "too clinical" for worship. The appointment of Bo Holten as Guest Conductor in 1991 introduced a new focus and approach to early music. The BBC Singers now work regularly with early music specialists, including Peter Phillips ( Tallis Scholars ) and Robert Hollingworth ( I Fagiolini ). Stephen Cleobury , chief conductor of

374-519: The economist Lord Layton ) in 1943; they had two sons and two daughters. After retiring from the BBC in 1972 he taught at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal College of Music , coached singers and other musicians from his home in south-west London, and played as part of a piano duo and as an accompanist. The young George Benjamin studied both the piano and composition with Gellhorn until

396-432: The group include Sir Peter Pears , Sarah Connolly , Judith Bingham and Harry Christophers . In 1924, the BBC engaged Stanford Robinson as Chorus Master. He formed a choir for a performance of Rutland Boughton 's Immortal Hour . This choir, known as 'The Wireless Chorus', was thereafter established as a full-time professional choir. In 1927, the BBC created an octet named 'The Wireless Singers', drawn from members of

418-469: The group was renamed the BBC Singers, and divided into two octets, known as Singers A and Singers B, one specialising in less standard repertoire including Renaissance polyphony and madrigals, the other in light music and revue numbers. Singers A were typically paid £1 per week more than Singers B. In 1939, Woodgate described the operation and function of the various BBC choirs, including the professional choir, in an interview with The Musical Times . During

440-458: The post, with effect from July 2018. In April 2022, the BBC announced the extension of Jeannin's contract as chief conductor of the BBC Singers through 2026, along with the appointments of Owain Park as principal guest conductor, Roderick Williams as composer-in-association, and Anna Lapwood and Abel Selaocoe each as an artist-in-association. On 7 March 2023, the BBC announced its decision to close

462-787: The son of an architect, was born as Hans Fritz Gellhorn in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw , Poland). He came from a musical family and was educated at the Schiller Realgymnasium, at Berlin University and at the Berlin Music Academy. He was a pupil of the composer Franz Schreker . When the National Socialists came to power he was obliged to leave Germany (since his father was Jewish) and settled in England in 1935. In 1937 he recorded

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484-726: Was in England), and Totentanz (1937), a work for two pianos, continued in much the same vein. There was also a Bach-influenced neo-classical work, the Trio Suite for two violins and viola. But also in 1937 he composed the more introverted and melancholy Intermezzo for violin and piano, written for his friend Maria Lidka . This melancholy vein continued with his first setting of English words (by Walter de la Mare ): Autumn (1938). Then came his internment, during which The Cats (a short movement for strings) and Mooragh (for male choir and strings, setting words by F.F.Beiber) were composed. There

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