About us
The Barnstaple Male voice Choir was originally formed in 1919, disbanded in 1954 and was reformed in 1976. Contrary to popular belief there are no members of the original 1919 Choir still with us.
We are delighted to have as our President The Countess of Arran who maintains a keen interest in the Choir at all times.
In 1976 the Choir reformed under the Chairmanship of Cyril Crowle MBE, later our Vice –president, who sadly passed away some seven years ago.
The reformed Choir maintained numbers of 30 – 40 for the first 20 years or so, but in the mid to late 1990s , singing numbers dropped under 30.
New Musical Director
In 1999 our current musical director Derek Trewin was appointed, since when our Membership has steadily increased to our current strength approaching 60.
The steady and ongoing increase in membership reflects the ever growing reputation of the Choir. This is down to the esteem in which Derek is held by the Choristers, for his warmth of personality, humour, musical teaching ability and his dogged insistence on clarity of diction for which the Choir is renowned.
Our Membership is as you would expect totally diverse, the bulk are North Devon born and bred,( they say to be classed a local you need 3 generations in the churchyard), but amongst others there are some ‘bandit raiders’ from Cornwall, one of whom is our M.D., we have a sprinkling of foreigners (Welsh) ,some from the war of the roses, and one from truly foreign parts, a Pole, although a U.K native since the 2nd World War.
Our repertoire covers all aspects of music, classical, spiritual, pop, folk and the ever popular music from the shows, and we try to reflect this diversity in concert.
The Choir travel and perform concerts primarily all over North Devon, but we leave our ‘patch’ at various times. Over the past 10 years we have been many times into our neighbouring county and hotbed of male voice singing: Cornwall.
Visits outside the South West include weekends spent in Bournemouth, Coventry, Derby, South Wales as examples.
In 2006, we travelled to Barnstaple’s twin town in North Germany, Uelzen , where we performed 3 concerts to great acclaim and success, and hopefully a reciprocal visit will take place in the autumn of 2008.
In May 2007, we also took part for the first time in the Cornwall Male Voice Choral Festival, singing with other U.K Choirs and also choirs from Finland and Estonia, playing to packed venues, we further advanced the reputation of the Barnstaple Male Voice Choir.
Some years ago the Choir wives/partners, decided that they would form their own formal organisation, with the aim to provide support to the Choir, hence the ‘Barnstaple Ladies Support Group’ was born.
They, as we are sure all other Male choirs would agree, have been invaluable in contributing to the ongoing success of the Choir. Many visiting Choirs will vouch for the incredible catering prowess of these ladies, in addition they are solely responsible for the sale of our CDs, and also for the organising of the majority if not all of the social functions. They have provided financial support with the provision of uniform travel bags, music folders and sweatshirts as examples, long may they continue.