A New Honorary Patron Joins the Family

Internationally renowned baritone Roderick Williams OBE – a great favourite with the Huddersfield audience and an even greater favourite with our singers – becomes an Honorary Patron of the Society at the beginning of the 2021-22 season.

His stellar operatic and concert career is simply too extensive to list here, but you can see some of it on his professional website at:

www.grovesartists.com/artist/roderick-williams/

Roderick was the featured soloist for the Last Night of the Proms in 2014 and more recently the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year in 2016. His appearances on the Town Hall stage have included Belshazzar’s Feast, the Bach B minor mass, Delius’ Mass of Life, and of course, Messiah. A champion of the choral tradition and of music education, he has never let fame diminish his readiness to engage with music’s grassroots – as our singing members will confirm, when he joined one of the online choral workshops that we put on earlier this year, from his Amsterdam hotel.

Let’s give our new Honorary Patron the final word. In his message to the choir he writes:

As a freelance, itinerant musician, it is sometimes possible to feel a little rudderless, without a base or home.  We singers hope to make friends wherever we go but this can become quite random and amorphous.  As a choral society with a documented history stretching back centuries, and with a firm geographical centre to your name and activities, you have that sense of tradition and belonging in abundance. It gives me great pleasure to be able to put down some semblance of roots in my association with the Huddersfield Choral, to strengthen a friendly relationship borne out of a shared love of music-making.  I look forward to becoming a part of your wonderful community.

With best wishes,

Roddy Williams