Our beginnings
On 16 September 1991 33 singers met in a cold church for their first rehearsal. They arrived in response to an invitation from David Burrowes to form a new choir, whose name was to honour the memory of Barbara Walton - a wonderful musician and a warm friend to many of them.
A mature approach
BWS has now been singing together for nearly twenty years and has grown into an important choir in the local community.
Highlights of previous seasons
The choir's reputation is founded on a range of performances, from simple Christmas carols to great
choral masterpieces, including music from the sixteenth century to the present day.
During the last years it has presented concerts featuring internationally known artists
including Rita Cullis, James Bowman and Crispian Steel-Perkins.
It has promoted and performed many young musicians' works during its sponsoring of the "Mozart
Millennium Project", which has also brought original works to public presentation from its Deputy
Musical Director, Michael
Lambert.
Michael has also used poems written by one of our members as texts for some of his own musical works.
Ron Scholes wrote "The Dales",
and these original compositions have been performed by the choir in previous seasons.
Previous years' programmes have been saved, to show you what we were doing in
2003,
2004,
2005,
2006 and
2007.
Singing Our Praises
(Not too many apologies for the pun - quite intentional, you may be sure)
Some independent members of our audiences have been kind enough, over the years, to share accounts of
their experiences at our concerts.
13 October 2007, St. Paul's, Newcastle - Choral and Organ Spectacular (reviewer)
13 October 2007, St. Paul's, Newcastle - Choral and Organ Spectacular (audience member)
20 December 2007, St. Mark's, Shelton - Christmas by Candlelight (reviewer)
15 March 2008, Stoke Minster - Brahms' Requiem (reviewer)
25 April 2009, Stoke Minster - The Creation (reader review)
25 April 2009, Stoke Minster - The Creation (correspondent)
7 November 2009, St. Paul's, Newcastle - Music by Fauré and Mendelssohn (audience member)
The Future
We look forward to welcoming newcomers as well as our loyal supporters to our concerts in widespread
locations throughout the forthcoming months. Have a look at the
programme for this year
to find out what's coming next.
(We're also looking a bit further forward: try
rest of the year.)