On 19 November, we’re celebrating the 150th anniversary of our very first choir rehearsal. This happened at the residence of property developer Charles Freake in his private Kensington basement theatre on 19 November 1875. Freake’s former residence is now the French Consulate. Around 65 singers attended the first rehearsal, including conductor and our first Musical Director, Otto Goldschmidt.
How our rehearsals look now
These days at The Bach Choir, we rehearse every Monday at 6.15pm at Westminster Cathedral Hall, and we’ve done so since. Our rehearsals are sacred for our singers – their function of learning and practising music is essential to us but these sessions are about so much more than that. Our community at The Bach Choir is now approximately 6,000 rehearsals old – within the choir there have been countless lifelong friendships formed, too many post-rehearsal drinks to count and even a fairly large number of marriages between members – music, as we all know, takes a very direct route to the heart.
How far our members travel for rehearsals
We asked our singers how far they travelled to attend rehearsals – you can see the locations of some of our furthest travellers beow.
Our Soprano Sarah travels over 120 miles to get to rehearsals every Monday from the town of Beccles…
And similarly Julia, Soprano, travels nearly 110 miles from Shaftesbury every Monday…
Join The Bach Choir
If you’re interested in being a part of our rehearsals, remember that we’re always looking for great new singers to join The Bach Choir. You can find out more about signing up here.