The Jubilate Choir
Our History
The first twenty-five years
In 2002 we celebrated our silver jubilee. Indeed, our name (originally Jubilate Singers, which gave rise to our JS logo) was inspired by the fact that when we were formed in 1977 the Queen was celebrating her Silver Jubilee. Even then, we were not an entirely new choir. Many of our original members had previously sung in a choir set up five years earlier as the St Michael's Singers with a base at St Michael's Church, Wallington. By 1975 they had become the Royal Russell Singers, rehearsing at the Royal Russell School, where their conductor, Chris Dowie, was then employed as head of music. When he moved to Wimborne Minster as director of music in 1977, they could no longer rehearse at Royal Russell and so were faced with the threefold task of finding a new conductor (Colin Yorke), a new home (All Saints Church, Shirley) and a new name - this last, ideally, avoiding any territorial connection. Jubilate came in a flash of inspiration at the end of a management meeting that finished at around 2am! Colin returned to his native South Africa in 1988 and Christopher Fifield became our conductor, a post he held until 2001. Among his other roles, Chris was (and still is) music director of the Lambeth Orchestra, and in the thirteen years of our association the emphasis of our repertoire was on religious choral music. The choir always supported Voices for Hospices and joined in the Croydon Music Council performances at Fairfield Halls, and our members sang each Christmas in the annual Messiah from Scratch event at St Luke's in West Norwood. In recent years we joined with the Chandos Choir from south Croydon for an annual concert performed at each of our respective venues under the baton of the `host' conductor. The success of these joint concerts, which were started by Chris and Ian le Grice (Chandos), continued for the next two years under their successors, Janet Haney (who previously worked with Chris as our rehearsal pianist) and Jo Richards. What of the future? All choirs need to attract younger members. There is much talent out there on the instrumental side but fewer young people are coming forward to sing. We have to address this problem if the choir is to continue for the next twenty-five years in its present format. Perhaps you are one of the people we are looking for. Why not come and sing, and be part of our future history? The Jubilate Choir belongs to Making Music London, the London region of Making Music (formerly the National Federation of Music Societies).
