About the Choir

Aylesbury Choral Society was founded in 1932 by Charles Pope, who lived locally and did so much for the musical life of the town. His memory is kept alive by the Charles Pope Memorial Trust which makes small grants to assist with the cost of musical education; you can read more about this here.

With an initial eleven members, the Society concentrated mostly on madrigals and part songs. After a very successful appearance at the Buckingham Festival the Society began to grow, and consequently started to expand its repertoire.

Today the Society has nearly 100 singers, and tackles performances of both the great classical choral repertoire and more modern works with equal enthusiasm and success. Works by twentieth century composers such as Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, John Rutter and William Walton have all featured in the Society's recent concerts, alongside choral favourites by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and others.

We always have a professional orchestra to play for us at our concerts, and our soloists are professionals of a high standard. Most concerts are held at St Mary's Church, Aylesbury. Concert dress is dinner jackets for the men, and long black dress (or skirt and blouse) for the ladies. The ladies also wear a green silk jacket that is supplied by the choir.
 
Details of our recent concert and our forthcoming programme can be found on our home page.

How to join
Are you interested in singing with us? We should be delighted to welcome new members. Come along to one of our rehearsals (see below) and see how you get on. If you then decide to join, we will ask you to have a short private voice assessment, but this is very straightforward and not difficult.

Membership will cost you about £40 a term (i.e. for each concert), and there are discounts if you pay for the whole year and if you are a senior citizen. For further information telephone the Society's Membership Secretary on 01296 487088.

Rehearsals
We normally rehearse every Tuesday evening during term times from 7:30-9:30pm. Our current venue is The Church on Fairford Leys, and directions are on the members page. There is also a rehearsal at the concert venue on the afternoon of a concert day.

There is always a break for refreshments and a chat half way through!

We are extremely fortunate to have as our rehearsal accompanist Colin Spinks, a very talented organist and pianist, who you can read more about by clicking here.

Become a patron or sponsor and help to support the choir
Perhaps you don't want to sing with us, but still want to support us in some way?
Full details on becoming a Patron or Sponsor can be found on our sponsors page, which can be reached by clicking here.

How to contact us
If you would like to have a general chat, or have any queries that have not been answered here, please contact our membership secretary on 01296 487088.