This was our very first public concert, arranged to celebrate both the coming together of the choir and the refurbishment of St James' University Hospital Chapel.

Handel's Foundling Hospital Anthem was chosen because of the Foundling Hospital that existed on the site before the hospital, and also this year is the anniversary of Handel's death in 1759.

There was fantastic support for the event.  The chapel was full to capacity with a wonderfully enthusiastic audience, and the new choir, excited by the new venture, rose to the challenge to give their audience a memorable and spirited performance.

We also had a fascinating short talk about the history of the first Foundling Hospital in London in the early 18th century, the first secular charity in the country, and Handel's unstinting generosity towards the charity, in the form of fundraising events, in the last 10 years of his life.  We were also treated to an organ recital by Tony Rudd, and the choir sang other shorter works by Purcell, Croft and Bach.

Altogether a very enjoyable taster of things to come, where we hope to give our audiences more opportunities to enjoy interesting music in interesting places.

This was a rich mixture of music both familiar and unfamiliar by composers both known and unknown, with our Featured Composer being Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger (1839-1901). Pippa from the choir gave us an interesting short talk about the life and works of Rheinberger, and it seems that through a touch of genius, a touch of eccentricity but a poor business sense his repertoire has been largely ignored until very recently, when it has achieved the recognition (and airplay on Classic FM) that it deserves.  We were treated to some clarinet music, with Guest Artist Dan Gibson, an organ solo played by Tony Rudd, and the moving Stabat Mater by the choir.

There were also works by Randal Thompson (1899-1984), an American composer whose extremely well crafted music, whilst continually popular in his home country has not fully reached the wider musical world, and Gabriel Faure (1845-1924), whose delightful Messe Basse for upper voices is not so well known as the beautiful Cantique de Jean Racine.

The 'Mini Masterworks A-Z' is a series of pieces presenting an A to Z of choral composers who have added masterpieces to the repertoire, and those chosen for this concert were by Jacob Arcadelt (1505-1568) and William Byrd (1543-1623).

The year 2009 has been marked by many composers' anniversaries, including the great likes of Handel, Mendelssohn, Purcell and Haydn, and those chosen for this concert included Queen Anne Boleyn's Lament by Robert Johnson (1500-c1549) which was arranged by our musical director; a choral (A Thanksgiving) and a clarinet piece (The Year's Close) also by Tim, who celebrates his 50th birthday this year; and a sweet piece of early 20th century sentimentality (In a Monastery Garden) by Robert Ketelby (1875-1959), on whose success he was able to retire at the age of 50.