Collaborations and partnerships

The choir was involved in several events to celebrate the bicentenary of Queen Victoria (our first Patron) and Prince Albert in 2019 at the invitation of Coburg City Council (Coburg being Albert’s birthplace). In May 2019 at Cadogan Hall, the choir performed works by Felix Mendelssohn alongside the orchestra from the Coburg Landestheater, with the concert attended by HRH The Duke of Kent, the German Ambassador and princes from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The choir paid a return visit to Coburg in July 2019 to perform Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony. This sell-out concert was attended by the British Ambassador to Germany who commended the musicians on this memorable collaboration.

In the early days of the first lockdown in April 2020, the Royal Choral Society joined forces with the Royal Albert Hall to keep the 144-year tradition of the Good Friday Messiah alive even though the Hall was closed due to the pandemic. This special performance saw 82 members of the Royal Choral Society singing from their own homes. Conductor Richard Cooke joined from his garden, with Richard Pearce – regular organist for the Last Night of the Proms – providing accompaniment. The individual videos were then spliced together to present the choir performing as if together. The video was presented as part of the #RoyalAlbertHome initiative from the Royal Albert Hall. The video had over 250,000 views over the Easter weekend, with viewers tuning in from all over the world.

Waitrose Business Events sponsored the Royal Choral Society’s performance of Haydn’s Creation at Peterborough Cathedral as an exclusive ticket-only event for John Lewis Partnership account card holders. As a customer services exercise it was a resounding success, and one that Waitrose repeated the following year with two further sponsored Royal Choral Society concerts – Bach’s B Minor Mass performed in Peterborough and Winchester Cathedrals.

The choir was asked by Société General to perform in a Christmas concert in the church of All Hallows by the Tower in the City of London as part of their corporate social responsibility outreach work, and as a fundraiser for their annual chosen charity. This invitation was repeated over several years, and the concerts were very much enjoyed by singers and audience alike

The choir was invited to record the soundtrack for an advertisement campaign for premium brand perfume Chanel No. 5. The track, the theme from the Johnny Depp movie Edward Scissorhands, was recorded at Air Studios in Islington, and the memorable ad – which featured a twist on the legend of Red Riding Hood and the wolf – enjoyed a long life on TV and in cinemas.

In a favourite event of the past 20 years, the Royal Choral Society took part in the dockside naming ceremony for Cunard’s new flagship, the Queen Mary 2 at Southampton, where the liner was officially named by Her Majesty the Queen. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Band of the Royal Marines performed alongside the choir. Choir members stayed on board the QM2, enjoying the sumptuous hospitality.

Our spectacular gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate our 125th anniversary was sponsored in aid of the NSPCC. HRH Princess Margaret was in attendance and the concert raised a sizeable sum for the charity.

For our 140th anniversary, the Royal Choral Society performed Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall with a portion of the proceeds donated to the music therapy charity Nordoff Robbins. The charity was also able to undertake audience bucket collections on the night.

We marked the centenary of the start of the First World War with a performance of Britten’s War Requiem with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of the military charity Veterans Aid. The concert was broadcast on Remembrance Day by Classic FM. Working with Lady Rothermere and the Lady R Foundation, sponsorship enabled £130,000 of ticket proceeds to go to Veterans Aid, a remarkable charity which provides support for today’s ex-servicemen and women in crisis.

To mark the centenary of the end of the First World War in 2018, the Society performed at London’s Cadogan Hall on Remembrance Sunday. The sell-out concert included Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, with poetry from the trenches read by actor Paul McGann. Our charity partner for the concert was Combat Stress, and a donation of £2000 was made after the concert, while the charity’s volunteers raised over £1000 in a collection on the night.