University of Birmingham Voices were pleased to perform this month as part of the BBC Proms Youth Choir at the largest classical music festival in the world – the BBC Proms.
Members of the University of Birmingham Voices at The Proms 2019.
Together with the BBC Philharmonic, the BBC Proms Youth Choir performed Haydn’s great masterpiece, The Creation, under the baton of renowned conductor Omer Meir Wellber. It is the sixth time University of Birmingham Voices have been invited to join the renowned massed ensemble.
Reviewed by all of the leading print and online news outlets, The Guardian noted ‘the performance’s chief glory […] was the BBC Proms Youth Choir, whose singing blended enthusiasm and commitment with superb dynamic control and polyphonic clarity’; whilst Seen and Heard International said the ‘heroes of the evening were, without doubt, members of the BBC Proms Youth Choir […] their ensemble was exemplary, their pitch was excellent and their tonal variations were spot on’.
University of Birmingham Voices are one of the foremost choral ensembles in Birmingham and are led by Professor Simon Halsey, Director of Choral Activities, and Julian Wilkins, University Chorus Director. The choir remain in high demand nationally and at home in Birmingham, with recent highlights including a performance of John Adams’s Harmonium for the opening concert of the BBC Proms 2017, as well as a critically acclaimed performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeomen of the Guard with John Wilson and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2018 they performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the World Orchestra for Peace at the BBC Proms, and in 2019 sang William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with the CBSO at Symphony Hall in Birmingham.
Choirs are an integral part of University Music in Birmingham, and offer unrivalled opportunities for young singers at any university in the UK. For more information, or if you would like to find out more about choirs at University of Birmingham, please contact Gavin Allsop.