History

Somerset Chamber Choir started life in 1984, the brainchild of Adrian Male in collaboration with Anthony Leigh, both of whom continue to sing in the Choir to this day. The Choir was founded as a means of enabling former members of the Somerset Youth Choir to continue singing together.

The first two conductors of the Choir were Keith Dukes (1984–85), followed by Chris Banks (1986-89). In those early days, concerts were mostly quite small-scale endeavours performed in various churches in and around Taunton, but with the appointment of the Choir’s third conductor, Graham Caldbeck, a more ambitious programme of concerts emerged and the pattern of performing in Wells Cathedral and King’s College Chapel Taunton was established. After twenty-seven rewarding years of development under Graham’s direction (1990-2017), we were excited to be joined by Richard Laing (2017-2023) who took us through the next six years of enjoyable music-making and, despite the best efforts of the COVID pandemic, still succeeded in introducing the Choir to lots of repertoire previously unknown to many of us, as well as bringing new perspectives to more familiar music. For the next phase of our almost 40-years long musical journey, we have been thrilled to welcome to our Somerset Chamber Choir family the leading choral conductor Andrea Brown (2023-) who has directed and devised award-winning festivals and concert seasons across the globe.

The Choir has been fortunate to have excellent accompanists, all of whom have performed as soloists in its concerts over the years. Anthony Leigh was the first, followed by Richard Pearce and currently Anita D’Attellis, both of whom are highly sought-after professional musicians whose services have been immensely beneficial to the Choir.

The Choir has benefited from a number of honorary appointees. Its Patron since 2009 has been Dame Emma Kirkby, whose voice and style are recognized worldwide; Emma first sang with the Choir in 1988 and has been a much-cherished soloist with us on a number of occasions since that time. Sir David Willcocks, who first worked with some of Somerset Chamber Choir’s founder-members when they were still singing with the Somerset Youth Choir, and best known in his role as Director of Music at King’s College Cambridge, was a Vice-president and then Patron until his passing in 2015. We were also fortunate that the world-renowned baritone Benjamin Luxon was a vice-president from 1995 to 2009; that Benjamin agreed to associate himself with the choir was a great honour for us.

Elizabeth, Lady Gass, at the time the Lord Lieutenant of Somerset, kindly fulfilled the role of President of the choir until 2007 – Lady Gass was very supportive of our work for many years for which we remain hugely grateful.

Conductor Emeritus is Graham Caldbeck, who played an enormous part in building the choir’s fine reputation throughout the many years he conducted the choir – for this, Graham will always have our deepest gratitude as without his contribution we would not be the successful organisation we are today.

We continue to have two Vice-presidents, both of whom enable the current organisation to draw on the experiences of its formative years – these are Adrian Male and Anthony Leigh, whose fruitful collaboration brought about the birth of the choir. Chris Cutting, whose valuable association with the group dates from its early days when his two sons sang with us, was also a much-valued Vice-president for almost as long as the choir has existed until he retired from the position in 2023 - Chris will always have a special place in our hearts.

The Choir’s logo was designed by artist Caroline Reeves, and gives the clue to the Choir’s history. It shows a tree in the shape of the County of Somerset (to signify the new choir emerging and flourishing from its Somerset roots), with a dot marking the location of the County town of Taunton where the Somerset Youth Choir was originally based; the tree is shown in front of one of the County’s most recognisable features, Glastonbury Tor, indicating the Choir’s Somerset history and home.