Introduction
There was a choral society in Brierley Hill, now in the West Midlands Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the 1880's but the present society has its roots in 1932 when an augmented choir gave a performance of Haydn's Creation . Following this a group of local singers decided to form the Brierley Hill Concert Society. Their first concert was a performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha in 1933. Our May concert this year celebrated our 75th Anniversary with a performance of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas together with other of his works. It was a great success with 5 wonderful soloists and a most accomplished fourteen piece string orchestra, Queens Park Sinfonia .
The choir really began to take off during the ten years immediately after the 2nd World War and there can be few amateur choirs in the country which can boast of having such a notable list of soloists who have joined them in their concerts over the years. These have included: Paul Robeson, Joan Hammond, Kathleen Ferrier, Peter Pears, Isobel Baillie, Kenneth McKellar, Joan Sutherland, Vladimir Ashkenazy… Quite some list of notables!
We still invite professional soloists, together with orchestras, to help us through the varied magnificent choral works which we perform in local churches and town/civic halls. Our next Concert will be on Saturday 6th December 2008 at St Michael's Church, Brierley Hill.
