When All Saints went marching in ......................
College choir triumphs at World Choir Games from 7-14 July 2008
The choir is performing at various locations in December 2008, please click here for details. Thank you.
The All Saints Catholic College Choir, Huddersfield, formed less than one year ago, has just returned from a major international choral competition with a medal! All Saints Catholic College Choir were awarded a bronze medal in the Youth Choir category of the World Choir Games held in Gratz, Austria.
Inspired by the BBC documentary ‘The Choir’, All Saints Catholic College, in conjunction with the OPAL foundation and the Diocese of Leeds, in September 2007, formed a choir ‘from scratch.’ In April 2008, All Saints Choir took first prize in the OPAL ‘Magic of Music’ competition in the Royal Albert Hall in London – their prize being an all expenses paid trip to Austria this Summer to compete in the World Choir Games.
All Saints Catholic College Choir, numbering 36 male and female singers, competed in the Youth Choir category against choirs from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia.
The choir sang four pieces: Shto mi e milo – traditional Macedonian, Flying Free – Don Besig, Anima Christi – Russian, Benedictus and Hosanna – Emily Crocker. The choir was conducted by Christopher McElroy (Assistant Director of Music, Diocese of Leeds) and accompanied on the piano by Dr Christopher Johns (Choral Director, Diocese of Leeds.) School music teacher, Catherine Lunn played the flute.
With over 400 choirs from 91 countries, the World choir games is the biggest international choral competition in the world. The All Saints Choir competed against choirs who had worked together for many years and who were a great deal older. Mary Nixon, Headteacher said, “The whole college community is bursting with pride at this success. We took the view that ‘participation was the greatest honour’, – but to triumph so spectacularly on the world stage is a moment these students and our college will savour for a very long time. We have already taken bookings for the Autumn!”
In addition to singing themselves, All Saints choir had many opportunities to explore singing styles and repertoires of other cultures, as well as interact with singers from across the globe!
Choir Director Chris McElroy said: ‘The choir have performed marvellously: Over the last year they have worked hard together as a team, inspiring each other to further develop their choral singing skills. The bronze medal which they have been awarded is richly deserved!’
All Saints Catholic College Triumph
What an overwhelming experience to see the students of All Saints Catholic College win the “The Opal Choir Project” live at the Albert Hall in London yesterday evening.
After months of rehearsals and performances, nine choirs competed at the Albert Hall in London in the company of the award winning Special Guest Stars Tenors Un Limited on Wednesday 16 April in a spectacular singing competition at the Royal Albert Hall.
All Saints Catholic College beat off very strong competition to come first in the competition and will go on to represent the UK in a fully funded trip to the World Choir Games in Austria in July 2008, where they will compete on an international stage.
The hard work, time and effort that has been put in by students, staff and parents has been well rewarded with yet another success for the college.
Our choir students now look forward to the experience of a life time to meet and compete against choirs from different parts of the world.
If the winners are dependent upon time, effort and commitment then All Saints should certainly win a “Gold Medal”.
Further (general) information about the competition can be found at:
In September 2007, 50 musically talented students were called down to a meeting with one of our heads, Miss Nixon, in which they learned they could audition to be in a school choir, which would perform at the Royal Albert Hall, in London; and, if they succeed there, they would take place in the choir Olympics, which will be hosted in Austria 2008.
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The Choir Project is founded by The Opal Foundation, who has had other projects like the Manchester New Children’s Hospital Appeal, where they donated £100,000.
The Choir are conducted by Chris McEllroy, who has hearing impairments. He has being conducting children’s choirs for ten years in both England and America. Despite his disability he has helped the choir improve vastly, and hopefully achieve highly too.
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