We performed Brahms’ Requiem at our annual Remembrance and Thanksgiving concert in November 2025. In the second half it was great to work again with the Boxted Methodist Silver Band.
In May 2025 we performed Howard Blake’s Benedictus with the composer himself in the audience. Howard was delighted with the performance – he was particularly pleased with the contrasting dynamics, diction, tone quality and interpretation.
The highlight of our Remembrance and Thanksgiving concert in November 2024 was Duruflé’s moving Requiem.
In April 2024 we performed a varied programme mainly from the Baroque era, including some lesser-known pieces which are not often performed. Our talented soloist Abbie Ward sang beautifully.
John Rutter’s Requiem formed the first half of our Remembrance Concert in November 2023. In the second half, we sang A Prayer for Ukraine and John Chillingworth’s For the Fallen. The Suffolk Phoenix Brass Band then performed a number of items before choir, band and audience combined with rousing renderings of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory.
Our Gala Concert in June 2023 was a belated celebration of the 30th birthday of the Society. Among highlights were Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, Bruckner’s Locus iste, Libera me from Verdi’s Requiem, Haydn’s Achieved is Thy Glorious Work and Whitacre’s beautiful Seal Lullaby.
In February 2023 we joined with the children of Lexden Primary School to sing a number of animal-themed pieces. It was great fun and lovely to see the children enjoying music in front of appreciative mums and dads!
In November 2022 we joined again with the Boxted Methodist Silver Band at our Remembrance concert in St Botolph’s. Highlights were Howell’s Requiem and Chilcott’s A Little Jazz Mass.
Our April 2022 concert at St Botolph’s in collaboration with the Kingfisher Ensemble included Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Vivaldi’s Gloria and A Prayer for Ukraine (sung in Ukranian!).
At our first post-lockdown concert in St Botolph’s in November 2021 we performed Fauré’s Requiem.
In 2021, we should have been taking part in one of the most remarkable events in the choir’s history. A New York concert agency invited us to a programme of the music of Karl Jenkins in the presence of the composer himself. We would have travelled to New York to join singers from all over the world for rehearsals and a performance at Carnegie Hall. This was a quite extraordinary invitation for a community choir from Colchester: to sing with a professional orchestra made up of some of New York’s finest musicians on the same platform where all the most famous musicians of the last 130 years have performed. Sadly, the Covid virus meant that we were unable to take part.