Choirs hit the high notes for York’s first Community Choir Festival

Eleven choirs from in and around York dazzled audiences with their vocal dexterity over the three evenings of the first York Community Choir Festival, which ran from Thursday to Saturday (28-30 January) at Joseph Rowntree Theatre.

The three-day event featured many different types of choirs, from men’s and women’s barbershop choruses, to traditional choirs, and some razzle dazzle with musical theatre favourites.  The three evenings were each compèred by Dougie Weake of Vale Radio, Adam Tomlinson and Elly Fiorentini of BBC Radio York.

Graham Mitchell, the theatre’s fundraising director, who organised the festival with volunteer, David Stainton, is delighted with the response to the event: “This is a brand new event for the theatre, and for York, and it brought out some fantastic local talent, who performed to very appreciative audiences on each of the three nights, and it was wonderful to have Dougie, Adam and Elly on board to help each evening run smoothly.”

Plans are already underway for next year’s Festival, with other choirs already asking to be involved.  “We had three very different concerts over the three nights, and with more choirs already saying that they want to get on board for January 2017, we may be able to further expand this to include more shows, and hopefully draw an even wider audience as this becomes an important part of York’s Festival calendar.”

Anyone wanting to get involved in the 2017 festival should contact Graham Mitchell at secretary@jrtheatre.co.uk.

ENDS

For further media information or photographs, please contact:

Jay Commins

PR director, Joseph Rowntree Theatre

Tel:         01904 500698

Email:    jay.commins@jrtheatre.co.uk