50 years of singing joyfully...and more
Small, but perfectly balanced -- as everything should be.
- Thanos, the Mad Titan
While we laud and admire our first MD Stephen Wilkinson for his immense energy, musical integrity, and for his way with a bon mot, it was not Stephen who first had the idea for a choir that would become the Byrds. That inspired genius was Dr John Coope MBE, founder of the Bollington Festival in 1964, and well-known throughout musical circles in the Cheshire area as chairman of the East Cheshire Music Committee. It was while wearing that hat that he approached Stephen Wilkinson, then chief conductor of the BBC Northern Singers, to convince Stephen that he did, in fact, have the spare time to form a scratch choir of capable singers from the area, rehearse them, and conduct them in a concert in May 1970.
Immaculate Conception
That concert was duly given, in Macclesfield Parish Church, accompanied by the Manchester Mozart Orchestra. The choir was listed in the programme as the East Cheshire Cantata Choir, and sang with evident gusto Vivaldi's Gloria and Bach's cantata Allein zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ.
The experience not only of giving the concert (and having it be a smashing success), but also of rehearsing under Stephen's expert if acerbic direction, and with singers of equal calibre was enough to persuade everyone present that this group should not die after one performance. In a pub in Macclesfield Dr John and Stephen agreed on William Byrd as the only choice after whom to name such a choir, and the accompli was fait.
Putting the team together
A committee was formed with Dr John as the chair, and Stephen was installed as MD. [I imagine dear old RON* never stood a chance. -- Ed.] The first concert, then, of the William Byrd Singers took place in November of that year, in the Whitworth Hall of Manchester University.
This concert introduced elements which were to become stocks in trade of Byrds programmes and concert-giving down the years. For one, it featured Byrd's own motet Laudibus in sanctis, a work that crops up in programmes with delicious frequency, like finding a chocolate Hobnob when you weren't expecting one. And significantly for posterity, it also featured a world premiere, of a work commisssioned especially for the occasion and the performers -- a setting of Psalm 115 by David Ellis, scored for choir, brass and organ.
The Byrds would go on to commission many works over the years, from leading composers of the day, and pair them with thought-provoking pieces from yesteryear, shining new light on the old and permitting the new to be heard as part of a continuing tradition. That care for the coherence of a programme, one that has a destination and direction, a narrative flow even, is a trait that continues to the present day -- but it was there at the very beginning of things.
To be continued...
* RON: Re-Open Nominations
