Welcome to Egham Choral

Egham Choral: a choir for all singers

Egham Choral, based in Runnymede, is a friendly, un-auditioned, choral society, with a full social calendar. We welcome new singers in all voice parts and sing a wide range of music, from classic and modern choral works to fun short pieces. If you are interested in joining us, please feel free to pop along to one of our rehearsals. We rehearse on Mondays at 7:30pm in the United Church of Egham, High St, Egham, TW20 9EX (Egham High Street, opposite Iceland).

The choir holds three annual concerts and our Spring concert is accompanied by professional orchestral musicians. We recently welcomed Hugh Beckwith as our new Musical Director and during rehearsals, we are accompanied by well-known local pianist, David Darby, who is celebrating 50 years with Egham Choral.

Spring Concert 2024

On Saturday 27th April 2024, Egham Choral will be performing Brahms ‘Deutsches Requiem’ and a selection of four motets at St John’s Church in Egham. We will be joined by a chamber orchestra and Bethan Terry (soprano soloist) and Geoff Clapham (bass soloist).

Bethan is a Junior Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Recently, she toured a staged production of Handel’s Messiah with The Merry Opera Company, across the south of the UK. Performance highlights of 2023 include Mozart’s Così fan tutte with North Wales Opera Studio, which featured Bethan’s debut performances as Fiordiligi. In June, Bethan was a Young Artist at Leeds Lieder Festival and performed in Clonter Opera’s Spring Opera Showcase. In July, Bethan performed a tour of recitals in Italy, with regular duo partner Francesca Lauri. Bethan has also performed for BBC Radio 3 in a special BBC Immersion concert, led by Alison Buchanan, of George Walker art songs.

Geoff began his musical education as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral. After a very protracted voice break, he became a choral scholar at St John’s College Cambridge, where he read Music. After many years in the wilderness, he began his studies in earnest at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in September at the tender age of 30, graduating in September of last year.
In 2022, Geoff performed the role of Scarpia in Opera Loki’s touring production of Tosca, for which he received an OffWestEnd award nomination for best Opera Performance. He also helped create a role for Waste Paper Opera’s original new work, Dead Cat Bounce, which premiered at Somerset House and tours again this year. Last summer, he was a Nevill Holt Opera Associate Artist and a member of the West Green Opera chorus whilst also giving several song recitals.

About our most recent concert:

Christmas Concert 2023 – on Friday 15 December 2023 we held our first performance with our new Music Director, Hugh Beckwith! We performed excerpts of Handel’s Messiah and a selection of Christmas carols in the beautiful Chapel at Royal Holloway University.  Thank you to everyone who helped to make the concert a success, including the choral students from Royal Holloway who performed the solos during the concert – Lucy Mitten (Soprano), Phoebe Wakefield (Alto), Joseph Morris (Tenor) and James Gooding (Bass).

Thank you also to our incredibly generous audience – we’re delighted to have raised a total of £377.78 for the Runnymede Foodbank.

Egham Choral: Celebrating Music Together