The Thirtieth Birthday of the Leicestershire Chorale
The first event in the celebration of the foundation of the Chorale was the Dinner for supporters held at Neville Holt Hall on Saturday 3rd February 2007 by kind permission of David Ross. After an appropriately fine meal and well chosen wines, the Leicestershire Chorale entertained their guests with a selection of classical and light-hearted items in the fine medieval hall.
The Chorale was founded in 1977 largely by the efforts of Dr. Andrew Fairbairn, the then Director of Education for Leicestershire and Rutland, who had himself been a choral scholar at Trinity College Cambridge. He took his ideas for a choir, which would provide in particular for teachers in Leicestershire, to Peter Fletcher, the County Principal Music Adviser and Peter agreed to be the first musical director of the Chorale. Peter has been an organ scholar and a Cathedral organist and gained experience conducting many choirs and orchestras in Britain and Canada. He taught at Uppingham School and had acquired a remarkable reputation for getting the best music out of young people, and became Chairman of the British Federation of Young Choir in 1989. He built a great reputation as Music Advisor for East Riding and the Inner London Education Authority. So from its earliest days Leicestershire Chorale was closely linked with youth music. Just before he died of cancer in 1996 Peter came back to St. James the Greater, Leicester to conduct the Chorale in a remarkable performance of J S Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
Apart from Andrew Fairbairn, now the President of the Choir, only one singer, Wanda Davies, remains from those early days. Others, in retirement, have helped with this history. The very first rehearsal was held on 24th November 1977 in Hazel Street School in Leicester. Though most of the members were in education, it was never a requirement for membership, and members came from all parts of the City and the County. By March 1978 the Chorale was ready to perform its first concert: the programme of sacred motets by Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Schutz, Cavalli, Purcell and Bach was performed first in St. Andrew’s Kegworth in the north of the county and then in St. Mary de Castro, one of the oldest churches in the city.
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The National Federation of Music Societies
