Our History
Founded in 1836, The Huddersfield Choral Society has an international reputation as the UK's leading choral society, producing a unique and thrilling full-bodied ‘Huddersfield Sound’.
The Professionals
The choir’s professional colleagues are: conductor laureate Martyn Brabbins, chorus master Joseph Cullen, deputy chorus master Darius Battiwalla and vocal coach James Ashworth. Rehearsal accompanist is Daniel Gordon and deputy accompanist Malcolm Hinchliffe. The Society's agent is Patrick Garvey Management.
Past Performances
As you can imagine, being so active for so long, our list of past performances is extensive - click the link to download.
Recordings
The Huddersfield Choral Society was an early pioneer of recording, starting in 1927 with Columbia Records, and has now appeared on over fifty releases. For a list of recordings click the link to download. Several of these recordings are available to purchase through our shopping site. In case of difficulty, contact David Lockwood.
Commissioned Works
The Huddersfield Choral Society has also undertaken a number of commissioned works - click the link to download.
Archives
The Huddersfield Choral Society’s archive collection is deposited with the West Yorkshire Archive Service (Kirklees district), based at Huddersfield central library. Collected together here are minute books of the Society’s management committee dating back to 1842, programmes of concerts dating back to the 1860s but including a few items of earlier date, and a considerable number of cuttings of newspaper and magazine reports of the Society’s concerts and other activities.
Here too are photographs, gifts presented to the Society as well as honours received, a few rule books along with other documents and miscellaneous items including audio and visual recordings dating from the 1940s to the present day.
The Society’s first archivist, Bob Edwards, is the author of And the Glory, a 150th anniversary history of the Society, which was published in 1986 (and now - sadly - out of print). After twenty years in the post, Bob has handed over to Malcolm Hinchliffe (another tenor singer) who currently works as a Customer Service Officer in Huddersfield central library, and is thus ideally placed to continue the invaluable work of preserving the Society’s historical records for future generations.
To contact the Archivist, please email Malcolm Hinchliffe