Musical Director Mark Anyan
Join our friendly choir as we celebrate 70 years of choral excellence, with three exciting concerts, culminating in our Anniversary Concert in 2024
Saturday 15 June 2024 7.30pm Newcastle Civic Centre
Mass in Blue with the composer Will Todd and his Trio
‘Driving jazz grooves and clear, strong, choral writing!’
Plus our newly commissioned piece by renowned composer Kristina Arakelyan, funded by Northumberland Freemasons
STEP ONE! Did you take it?
Musical Director Mark Anyan
We welcomed guest singers into the beautiful setting of All Saints and enjoyed the Vocal Technique session with Mary Hitch. Mary is a freelance vocal coach and singing teacher and is the Study Leader in Singing at The Glasshouse (formerly) Sage Gateshead’s Young Musicians Programme, in which she coaches the most talented young singers in the north-east.
NCS Accompanist Nick Butters Nick became the accompanist for Newcastle Choral Society in December 2021. He teaches and plays at the Centre for Advanced Training at the The Glasshouse and regularly accompanies the cellist, Deborah Thorne and soprano Mary Hitch, and the Wordsworth singers. Nick accompanied us at the Come and Sing.
Mark Anyan NCS Musical Director took over for the rest of the session as we worked through the sublime Faure Requiem. We enjoyed a well deserved break for drinks and cakes – lots of them, before finishing the afternoon with a Beatles classic ‘And I love her’
Lots of lovely comments from our guest singers as they headed home. We hope some will be able to try us out as potential members.
A MIDSUMMER CELEBRATION
Traditional and Contemporary Choral works
from Handel to Hagenberg, Boulanger to Beach including ‘Zadok the Priest’ and ‘I was Glad’.
Saturday 24th June at 19.30 in Trinity Church Gosforth
Soprano: Mary Hitch
Soprano: Katie Oswell
Piano: Nick Butters
Organ: Kris Thomsett
Musical Director: Mark Anyan
£12 with free programme Free to under 18s with a paying adult
(£6 for those in full time education or registered unemployed)
Available online at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newcastle-choral-society
Card payments or cash on the door
There will be a Pay bar in the interval – CASH ONLY please
Our midsummer concert consists of a wide variety of music drawn from different periods. Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Handel, Mozart, Fauré and Parry are included as well as Ola Gjeilo
Morten Lauridsen is currently one of America’s most performed composers,
whose Sure on this Shining Night provides us with the title for our programme.
We are also pleased to perform a number of works by female composers. Music written by women has often been unjustly neglected in the past but is now being given the attention it fully merits. Amy Beach, Lili Boulanger and Elaine Hagenberg provide a substantial contribution to our programme.
In addition to the United Kingdom we visit the USA, France, Italy, and Norway.
Quiet, contemplative music and rousing, joyful choruses provide great contrast and there are two items which, conforming with tradition, accompanied important sections of the recent coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, namely I Was Glad and Zadok the Priest.
We are sure you will find much to enjoy in this well-chosen programme.
FOR NOW Sing with Us – Two FREE sessions remaining:
Discover: what it is like to sing with NCS. We are coming to the end of a series of monthly open rehearsals. Only Two more remain so come along at 7.30pm on the following Mondays: 22 May and 12 June.
We started these sessions in February in great style, some participants choosing to come each week, in all sections.
Join in – it’s not too late to get a flavour of NCS as we prepare a selection of choral favourites for our Summer Concert. These include works by Handel, Mozart, Lauridsen and Hagenberg, the latter choice, a sure winner to bring a tear to the eye!
Sing with us in performance in the lovely setting of Trinity Church Gosforth on 24 June at 7.30pm!
Beyond that become a fully fledged member of NCS and enjoy a rewarding choral experience with exciting opportunities ahead! Whats not to like!
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NEW Sing with Us – FREE sessions:
Discover: what it is like to sing with NCS. We are running a series of monthly open rehearsals at 7.30pm on the following Mondays: 20 March,17 April, 22 May and 12 June.
We started these sessions in February in great style, some participants choosing to come each week. Hurrah for Sopranos and Altos but we would love to welcome Basses and Tenors!
Join in as we prepare a selection of choral favourites for our Summer Concert, including works by Handel, Mozart, Lauridsen and Hagenberg, the latter choice a sure winner to bring a tear to the eye!
Sing with us in performance in the lovely setting of Trinity Church Gosforth on 24 June at 7.30pm!
Beyond that become a fully fledged member of NCS and enjoy a rewarding choral experience with exciting opportunities ahead! Whats not to like!
Learn More
Soprano: Ruth Jenkins-Róbertsson
Alto: Elizabeth Hogarth
Tenor: Austin Gunn
Baritone: Ben Noble
Orchestra North East
Musical Director: Mark Anyan
Saturday 11 February 2023 7.30pm
BANQUETING SUITE NEWCASTLE CIVIC CENTRE
£18 with free programme Free to under 18s with a paying adult
(£8 for those in full time education or registered unemployed)
Available online at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newcastle-choral-society
Card payments or cash on the door
Pay Bar in the interval
For our first major concert in 2023 and with the disruption of Covid behind us, we brought you Handel Messiah, probably the most popular of all oratorios.
Rendered musically in moving arias and rousing choruses, the oratorio foretells of His coming and His birth, through His life experiences such as His rejection and suffering, to His Death and beyond, as well as His influence on our own lives.
We were delighted to welcome back soprano Ruth Jenkins-Róbertsson who sang so movingly at our May 2022 Sage Gateshead concert. NCS combined with Hertfordshire Chorus with their conductor David Temple to perform Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony and James McCarthy’s Codebreaker which was commissioned by Herts Chorus and emotionally portrays the life of Alan Turing
We also were delighted to welcome back Elizabeth Hogarth as alto, Austin Gunn with his fine tenor voice and for Ben Noble, his first time performing not only for NCS, but also the bass role in Messiah, and boy, did he relish every moment!
and then we have:
SING WITH US
From February 2023 we will be running a series of monthly open rehearsals on the following Mondays 20th February, 20th March, 17th April, 22nd May and 12th June.
Discover what it is like to sing with NCS and prepare a selection of choral favourites, including works by Handel, Mozart, Lauridsen and Hagenberg, for our Summer concert. You will be able to join the choir in performance at Trinity Church in Gosforth, at 7.30pm on 24 June.
Contact enquiries@newcastlechoralsociety.org.uk for more details and to book a place.
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#Bring back my Choir #Bring back my Band
This is a major campaign launched by Making Music. Working on behalf of amateur musicians in the UK, they are extremely proactive in representations to Government for a route back to performance.
‘Government guidance on reopening the performing arts published on 9 July has caused widespread disappointment, prohibiting amateur groups or groups with amateur participants – unlike professionals – to play or sing together, except in the numbers of people currently allowed to meet in public.
It goes further to say that singing and playing wind and brass instruments isn’t even allowed in those numbers.
The guidance (England only) will only be reviewed when the results of just commissioned research into droplet and aerosol transmission of Covid-19 are available. The devolved administrations are expected to issue similar guidance shortly (Wales: this week, Scotland: next two weeks, NI: n/a).
Many groups, before the guidance came out, were looking forward to meeting again, even with strict risk management measures, and were already hard at work creating a new normal, just as pubs, hairdressers and gyms are doing – considering small sectionals outside, inventing new ways of making music together in socially distanced ways, planning some sort of future. Now, not even groups of 6 outside are permitted if you are singers or wind or brass players; and still only groups of 6 outside if you play anything else.
There is no explanation why amateurs are being treated differently to professionals in this guidance.’ Extract from Making Music’s campaign.
The music industry is currently being significantly supported by amateur musicians. Newcastle Choral Society along with many other local choirs, employs freelance professional music teachers, many professional singers, pays rent and purchases performance materials, as well as hiring concert halls and other venues.
So 
until things change significantly, we must rely on our Zoom sessions on Monday nights. 
We had a surprise guest recently! Will Todd popped into give us a quick run through of Benedictus from his Mass In Blue. What a treat!
Our great achievement this year while in Lockdown was our 2 videos released on YouTube https://youtu.be/BWrFwA-0dEs and https://youtu.be/TxbOUeBSiGs Views exceeded 3000 over the 2 clips. Members of NCS and the Hertfordshire Chorus sang excerpts from James McCarthy’s Codebreaker which we would have sung in Sage Gateshead on 3.5.20 but now rescheduled for 16.5.21. All fingers crossed for that performance.
The second video released on the day of VE75, featured footage of the ‘Forces sweetheart’ Vera Lynn who died recently aged 103! Poignant wartime images as a backdrop to the hauntingly beautiful ‘Sing me at Morn’.
Both videos featured recently on Star & Shadow Radio(https://www.
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‘Come and Sing’ Mozart’s magnificent REQUIEM
with members of Newcastle Choral Society
Musical Director: Mark Anyan
SATURDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2019 10 TILL 3
TRINITY CHURCH GOSFORTH
We had an amazing day on 14th September! Under our Musical Director Mark Anyan’s command, a choir of 104 singers in total, made up of guests and members of NCS, worked hard all day – the powerful attraction of Mozart’s Requiem without a doubt! Thank you to everyone who came and the appreciative audience of family and friends plus some passers by, who came in at the end of the afternoon for an informal performance! ” It really was a very good performance” from an audience member.
Warren Smith, Director of Music at St Mary’s Church Ponteland was our superb guest organist. Our guest soloists were a delight; Emma Anyan Mezzo, Nerys Angel Soprano, Luke Busbridge Bass and multi tasking Mark Anyan as Tenor and Conductor!
Trinity Church is a marvellous venue and our thanks go to the team of staff and volunteers who manage events such as ours so immaculately.
Rehearsals now continue for the Feb 1st 2020 performance of Mozart Requiem in the Banqueting Suite at Newcastle Civic Centre at 7.30pm.
We will also be squeezing in a festive concert on Sat Dec 7th 2019 at Trinity Church again.
Diary Date:
SUNDAY 3rd May 2020 at 3.00pm
SAGE ONE GATESHEAD
NCS are delighted to be collaborating with Hertfordshire Chorus and their Musical Director David Temple in a blockbuster concert in Hall One. https://www.hertfordshirechorus.org.uk/ They are a very impressive choir and it is a privilege to be joining forces with them!
In the first half, the combined choirs of around 200 voices will be performing the North east premiere of James McCarthy’s Codebreaker’– an oratorio about the life of Alan Turing, the “father of computer science”, commissioned by Hertfordshire Chorus in 2014. It’s a terrific piece!
This will be conducted by Mark Anyan
In the second half, David Temple will conduct Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony
It’s all go at NCS! Come and join us!!
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