History of the Choir

The Southport Bach Society was founded in late 1965 by David Bowman, the then organist at Holy Trinity, Southport and now known to A-level music students as the author of various music textbooks. His original intention was to have a small chamber choir, rather like The Sixteen, with only a few voices per part, but over the years the choir has grown to around forty.

After 5 years David Bowman moved to Ampleforth and he was succeeded at Holy Trinity by David Williams, then the Director of Music at K.G.V, who also took over the Society.

Over his more than twenty-five years of direction the choir has grown considerably in size and repertoire, which is mainly religious in nature and covers a wide variety of periods and styles - from Bach's "Mass In B Minor" to motets by Twentieth Century British and continental composers. We have performed works from the 15th century to the present day. Most concerts take place in Holy Trinity itself but occasionally we perform secular works in the Parish Centre at Holy Trinity or at other venues around Sefton.

There are three main concerts in a season and normally at least one of them uses a professional orchestra and soloists. The orchestra is usually a mixture of students from the Royal Northern College of Music, who are just starting on their professional career, and experienced players from the north-west's established orchestras.

Text: Keith Underdown

History of the Choir

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