Our History
Founded in 1836, Huddersfield Choral Society has developed an international reputation as the UK's leading choral society. Our Junior Choirs were formed in 1986.
As you can imagine, being so active for so long, our list of past performances is extensive. We have also undertaken a number of commissioned works.
Recordings
Huddersfield Choral Society was an early pioneer of recording, starting in 1927 with Columbia Records, and has now appeared on over fifty releases. Several of these recordings are available to purchase through our shopping site. In case of difficulty, please contact David Lockwood.
Archives
Programmes for the 2009-2010 season onwards are available on our Issuu site.
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, first published in 1986 and currently being reprinted to celebrate the Society's 175th anniversary year in 2010/11. Our current archivist is Malcolm Hinchliffe.