Beckenham Chorale is a mixed voice choir of about 80 voices founded in 1960 and affiliated to Making Music and the Bromley Arts Council. It gives three concerts a year at St George’s Church Beckenham and rehearses each week broadly through the school year at the St George’s Church Hall.
With a varied repertoire it is best known for our spirited performances of the great and exciting choral works. In recent years, works performed include Bach ‘Magnificat’, Vivaldi ‘Gloria’, Orff ‘Carmina Burana’, Rossini ‘Stabat Mater’, Dvorak ‘Mass in D’, Tippett ‘A Child of our Time’, Handel ‘Messiah’ and Verdi ‘Requiem’.’
The Chorale engages professional soloists and orchestral instrumentalists, with whom we have a long association, to perform with the choir.
Conductor
Mark studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music and began his career as a professional singer. He has been Musical Director of the London-based chamber choir Coro since 2003, conducting them to international competitive success, in regular concerts throughout Britain and Europe, and on radio and CD. He also works with large symphonic choruses including the Philharmonia Chorus and the Brighton Festival Chorus.
Mark has a wealth of experience with younger singers, too, as Director of the award-winning Berkshire Youth Choirs and a music mentor for the National Festival of Music for Youth, and is currently Director of Choirs at the Junior Department of Trinity College of Music. He has also directed the Young Conductors’ Course for the Association of British Choral Directors.
Chamber Orchestra
The re-opening of the magnificent baroque church of St Paul in Deptford, after four years of extensive restoration, enabled St Paul’s Sinfonia to launch its inaugural concert season in December 2004, bringing live high-quality classical music to the cultural scene of Lewisham and beyond. After our first seven seasons, we spread our wings and moved slightly further afield, to Greenwich, Lewisham, Blackheath and Catford.
Conducted by Andrew Morley, St Paul’s Sinfonia consists of experienced and dynamic orchestral players from across London. We perform monthly concerts at venues across south London. The Sinfonia draws its repertoire from a wide range of musical styles, from Baroque and Classical to Romantic and Modern, and aims to combine classics of the chamber orchestra repertoire with more unusual and challenging works.
Our concert seasons have included a complete Beethoven symphony cycle and a Brahms cycle; tributes to such diverse composers as Richard Strauss, Britten, and Bernard Herrmann; and premieres from Elena Firsova, William Attwood, Mark Bowden, Anna Meredith, Timothy Jackson and Matt Rogers.