Ealing Choral Society Celebrates 60 Years of Making Music in Ealing

In its first full year under the baton of Director of Music Peter Asprey, Ealing Choral Society celebrated its 60th Anniversary season with two sell-out concerts and a world premiere.

The celebrations began in the autumn with the premiere of a new composition, Bird of Time, commissioned by the choir from highly acclaimed British composer and ECS Vice President Cecilia McDowall. Performed at the choir’s November 60th Anniversary celebration concert, the cantata was very well received by the sold-out audience, and we look very much forward to wherever Bird of Time may fly in the future.

The annual Christmas charity carol concert in December raised over £5,500 for Ealing Foodbank, and we are grateful for the generosity of all those involved. It is always a pleasure to support a local charity at Christmas time, and especially so when we are able to make such a financial impact.

In January we held our annual fundraising quiz supper at Haven Green Baptist Church, and are pleased to report that the event raised over £3,500, which will enable the choir to continue its work and promote music to the next generations of singers and audiences.

In March ECS held a glorious performance at the Cadogan Hall ,  the first time returning to the central London venue since the COVID-19 pandemic. The centrepiece of the evening was the great Mozart Mass in C Minor, the work the choir had been preparing for performance in March of 2020, which had to be canceled due to the first lockdown. The performance with soloists Galina Averina, Kirsty O’Neil, Guy Elliott and James Oldfield accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra was a triumph, capped off with an encore of Mozart’s late work, Ave Verum Corpus, an emotional moment for both choir and audience.

For the final concert of the season, “A Night at the Opera,” ECS was joined by young singers from Gunnersbury Catholic School, and we were thrilled to be able to engage a future generation in the joy of choral singing. We hope this is an experience the students enjoyed and will take with them to find other opportunities for choral singing and music making.

After a hugely successful 60th anniversary season we look ahead to 2023-2024 with a season of works both familiar and new, which will challenge, inspire and engage us as singers and as a choir community. As always we are keen to welcome new voices to join us, especially tenors and basses. If you are interested in joining us, even for a trial period of a week or two without obligation, please do get in touch with our membership secretary.