On the lookout for tenors and basses as Newbury Chamber Choir makes a fresh start

On Tuesday, Newbury Chamber Choir begins rehearsals for a concert of Early Music in the spring.

After nearly two years without singing the choir is now ready to begin again. In the autumn it performed Florence Maunders’ arrangement for four voices of Schubert’s Die Schone Mullerin, which was a great way to get back to singing, but it had not met since then.

Ed Lambert, who had conducted the choir for 18 years, has now moved on and the choir is very excited to have appointed Ben de Souza as its new conductor.

Ben is a singer and an accordionist, as well as a conductor. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Cambridge and is much in demand as a performer and a conductor. He is also musical director of the Farnham & Bourne Choral Society and the Reading Lunchtime Choir.

He has decided to take the choir back to its roots and will rehearse a programme of Palestrina and Lotti.

The choir also has a new accompanist, Georgina Robertson, who may be well known to many local people as she is head of expressive arts at St Bart’s.

With a new start it would be a good time to welcome some new singers and anyone who is interested can contact secretary@newburychamberchoir.co.uk

No audition is required. Rehearsals take place on Tuesdays at 8pm at St Nicolas Junior School, Link Road.

The choir is particularly short of tenors and basses, but any new singers, of any age, would be warmly welcomed.