Welcome to the website of the Bury Bach Choir, where you can find comprehensive information about the choir, its history, concert plans and how you can help to support us. Described in March 2012 in the East Anglian Daily Times as “a treasure for the town”, the choir was established in Bury St Edmunds in 1932. Over nine decades it has performed the principal works in the choral repertoire, including of course the great works of Bach. The choir is fortunate to have benefited from the talents of three outstanding musicians as its Music Directors – our founder, Percy Hallam, Harrison ‘Fred’ Oxley and Dr Philip Reed. Now as we enter our tenth decade we start a new and exciting era with Benedict Collins Rice as our Music Director.
We have about 115 singing members at the moment, and we warmly welcome new members in all voices. We are an auditioned choir and aim to be among the best choral societies in the region. Our future concert programme reflects our ambitions. We present concerts to a consistently high standard, employing professional instrumentalists and soloists to accompany us. We are fortunate to be able to perform in some of East Anglia’s loveliest venues, including St Edmundsbury Cathedral and St Mary’s Church in Bury St Edmunds, the beautiful and famous parish churches at Lavenham and Long Melford and the wonderful concert hall at the Apex in Bury St Edmunds.
The standards we set ourselves mean that our major concerts are expensive to present, and we are very fortunate to have many Friends, Benefactors and Corporate Sponsors and Patrons who support us. We are sincerely grateful to all of these individuals and organisations.
I hope you enjoy browsing this website. All the information you need on how to join the choir, what we are planning to sing in the coming months, how to support us and who to contact is available here.
It is a privilege for me to Chair an organisation that has contributed so much to the cultural life of our beautiful town, and has firm plans to build further on its established reputation for good singing and the performance of wonderful music. I look forward to seeing you soon at one of our concerts, or as a new member of the choir.
Tess Wright
