We are a friendly, non-auditioned choir that  generally performs 4 concerts to a high standard each year in Royston and the surrounding villages. Our musical director is Andrew O'Brien and he is assisted by Jonathan Lilley. 

Formed in 1973 we celebrated our first 50 years a couple of seasons ago and are now enjoying our next 50 years of music making in the area. The choir numbers nearly 100 singers.

We engage fine professional soloists for our major concerts and are able to call on an excellent pool of orchestral players. 

Our 2025-26 season will be Andrew's 11th season season as our musical director, so will include a mixture of works we have done with Andrew before and new ones. All the concerts will have a theme of Journeys by Sea and in Spirit.

Our first concert of the season, on November 15th, included Britten's cantata St Nicolas.  We are fortunate that, given Andrew's position at St Edmund's, we had instant access to a wonderful trio of 'pickled boys' and David Webb once again joined us singing the part of Nicolas. Also included in the concert was Celia McDowall's Ave maris stella and Finzi's beautiful Eclogue for piano and strings. The soloist in this was Thomas Hipkin (again from St Edmund's).

Our customary Christmas concert took place on December 13th with the usual mix of carols for choir and audience, the festive atmosphere enhanced by the presence of St John's magnificent Christmas tree. A pupil of Andrew's from St Edmunds, Amelia James, began proceedings singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City and later in the concert gave a beautiful performance of O Holy Night. Jonathan Lilley also contributed a couple of organ solos including Thomas Trotter's virtuosic arrangment of Sleigh Ride.

We are now looking forward to our first concert of 2026. This will be on March 28th, again in St John's in Royston, when we will be performing Brahms' sublime Ein Deutsches Requiem, with Stanford's Songs of the Sea. The concert will be with full orchestra and fine soloists to be announced in due course. Tickets will be available from early February.

Our summer concert in June will include Elgar's Sea Pictures and anthem The Spirit of the Lord, Parry's Blest pair of sirens and works by Howells and Ireland.

We enjoyed excellent audiences in the last couple of seasons with many of our concerts being sold out. We hope to continue that pattern and so early purchase of tickets is advised!

There are some videos of parts of some of our recent concerts available by following this link.

For more information about the society please contact the chair - Huw Jenkins (email: [email protected] or tel: 07855 311192)