OUR HISTORY
SOUTH SOMERSET CHORAL SOCIETY
The Society was founded in the Autumn of 1966 as the result of an initiative by the County Music Committee of the Somerset Rural Community Council and its Assistant Music Advisor, Michael Burton.
The first full season in 1967/8 saw Peter Dimond appointed as Conductor, a post he held until 1979. Peter was then a Lecturer in Music at Yeovil College. Edgar Tinney was elected Chairman and Janet Smart as Honorary Secretary. Edgar held the job for 12 years. Janet has been on the committee throughout most of the succeeding years and has been invaluable. The Society’s first concert at Ilminster Methodist Church on the 14th December 1967 was a performance of Parry’s “Blest Pair of Sirens” and Parts 1 to 3 of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio”.
The world renowned tenor, Robert Tear, kindly agreed to be our President in 1978 and the composer and arranger William Llewellyn took over that role in 2012.
A tradition of having two performances of each programme began in December 1970 and was normal practice until 2011. There have always been two major programmes each year in the autumn and spring, but recently we have added a separate Carol Concert and an informal summer concert of lighter music. To begin with the Society rehearsed on Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons, but from 1974 rehearsals have been on Thursdays only.
In 1979 John Simmons was appointed Musical Director. John was a teacher at Kings School in Taunton, an accomplished string player and a fine Bass soloist. He conducted the Society for ten years. His decade saw the choir undertake some brave and musically demanding programmes, none more so than in December 1983 when the Society premiered a work especially written for us by Philip Martin, a Dubliner with an international reputation as a pianist and composer. “The Canticle of the Sun” was a great success and a considerable achievement.
Russell Burton, Choirmaster and Organist at Taunton School took, over the baton for the 1988/9 season but his reign was cut short by his career taking him to work in Surrey. In 1989, Richard Barrell, then County Music Co-ordinator, was appointed as Musical Director, a post he held until 2011.
In 1991, the Society celebrated its 25th anniversary with a performance of Britten’s “St Nicholas” in Chard in which the tenor solo was performed by our President. In 1995, we celebrated Ilminster’s Millenium with “Ego Aethelredus” a celebration of the town’s social history with music by Ilminster teacher, Nigel Harris, and words by choir member, Jennifer Bailey. The following year we took Ethelred to Ilminster’s twin town Riec sur Belon for a joint concert arranged by the Twinning Association.
It is our policy to avoid repeating ourselves, but we have made exceptions for exceptional pieces. The Society has performed the Bach “Mass in B Minor” on three occasions, in December 1983 as part of the Chard 750 celebrations, in April 2006 and in March 2017 for our 50th Anniversary at Haselbury Mill, which is particularly well suited to the really big numbers. We performed the Verdi Requiem at Haselbury Mill in 2010 and plan to do so again in March 2023.
We have twice performed with visiting American choirs, Nashua Choral Society in 1976 and Hampshire Choral Society in 1980. In February 1988 we made a guest appearance singing the Rossini “Petite Messe Solennelle” in Frome as part of the Great Elm Festival. Twice we have been the guests of the chorale “Paroles en l’Air” in Chatillon sur Indre and they have sung in Somerset with us as well.
For many years the Society supported a Junior Choir with which it performed regularly and we have also taken part in a wide range of concerts for charity at Midelney, Stourhead, Crewkerne and elsewhere. We now use the Carol Concert to raise funds for a charity and it is invariably sold out.
In 2011 Tim Donaldson, a choral singer of great experience and previously conductor of the Nailsea Choral Society, took over as conductor, bringing renewed vigour to the society and taking rehearsals with his unique blend of musical exactitude and unfailing good humour. He has led us through even better performances and has worked on the principle that we do not repeat any work that we have performed within the previous ten years. We are in no danger of getting stuck in a rut. Things hit two major snags in early 2020. Health problems meant that Tim had to hand over the rehearsals and the baton for our March concert to our admirable Deputy Musical Director, Jenny Broom and within a matter of days of concert day Covid 19 forced us to cancel the performance. We did however give the same programme a marvellous performance under Jenny in March 2022. It was a heart-warming affirmation of the power of choral music to lift morale in testing times.
Throughout its history the South Somerset Choral Society has kept to the policy of its founders; to make the opportunity to sing first rate choral works available to anyone who wants to join. There is no audition, but nonetheless the musical standard is as high as that of any choral society in the region. The Society has performed a huge number of works and has never taken the option of only putting on those works that we and our audience know already. The music comes first, and so it must, but we also manage to have a lot of fun and many long and valued friendships have been formed between the bar lines.
