INTRODUCTION and HISTORY of the Choir

Radcliffe on Trent is a village of some 8000 inhabitants situated 5 miles east of Nottingham on the A52. In 1983, fired originally by the enthusiasm of the local school's Head of Music, Mr Clive Sims, 28 local men founded the Radcliffe on Trent Male Voice Choir (RMVC). Since that time the membership has grown to around 70 and the Choir has achieved an enviable reputation in the Nottingham area, and beyond, for Male Voice Choral singing under their Musical Director Richard Howarth and, up to sept 1999, his assistant and choir accompanist Alex Denman. Sadly Alex died in early 2007 in his 90th year. He is pictured above as we kindly remember him.

In September 1999 the Choir were extremely fortunate to attract the services of a highly talented replacement for Alex - ELEONORA BABITSKAYA who was born in Russia and subsequently lived in Germany before moving to England in 1995.

The Choir generally performs some 15-20 concerts per year in venues ranging from local village halls and churches to Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall. An outstanding recent example was a concert in Lincoln Cathedral in Feb 2001 when over £4000 was raised for the RNLI.
Several tours overseas have been made including to Antwerp, Gent, the Rhine Valley and also Atlanta, Georgia in the USA. A visit to reciprocate the 1999 hosting of the Hermanus Choir from South Africa, was made to Cape Province in Febuary 2000 when 5 concerts were sung.

Choir pictured at London's Whitehall Banqueting House where we sang in April 2003 & 04.

We usually engage a soloist to broaden the scope of our concerts. These have included Mike Rayner, Dawn Foxall and Donna Bateman. The latter accompanied the Choir on our recent tour of South Africa and was extremely well received. For brief biographies of these fine singers click on SOLOISTS.

We also sometimes sing joint events with, for example, Brass Bands. We have thrice engaged the World and European Champions Brighouse and Rastrick. In Dec 1998, we jointly entertained a packed house at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall and incidently raised over £11,000 for the charity SHELTER.

Co-opted Executive Committee Member

Non Executive Officers

Tours and Events ---
Stage Manager ------ Chris Boden.........Tel: 01636 813876. email christopher@fish.co.uk
Librarian -------------- Vic Brand.............Tel: 0115 911 9049. email:
Press Officer --------- Martin Cheesman.........Tel: 0115 933 3399
Archivist --------------- Geoff Warrington...........Tel: 0115 933 4723
Concert Secretary & Lighting --Barry Riley.........Tel: 0115 849 2722 email: barry@riley7401.freeserve.co.uk
Merchandise --------- Roy Shopland......Tel: 0115 914 5585. email: roy.shopland@ntlworld.com
Webmaster ----------- Martin Clarke.....Tel: 0115 9333800 email: martincg@innotts.co.uk

REPERTOIRE

The choir is always adding to the repertoire, most recently - Requiem by Cherubini and four Beatles numbers. The latter additions were inspired by our invitation to participate in a Beatles tribute concert at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall in september 2007.

As the Choir has a current repertoire well in access of one hundred pieces it is not reasonable to list them all here. However our latest recording which has the title ON WINGS OF SONG and is available both in cassette and CD format gives an idea of the breadth of our repertoire. The 17 tracks on this CD are:

INVITATION TO POTENTIAL MEMBERS

The Choir is always willing to welcome new members. As part of our recruitment/publicity activities we hold occasional OPEN EVENINGS when potential new members, or just interested persons, are invited to sit in on a practice and share some refreshment afterwards.

Previous ability to read music is not a pre-requisite of membership but some formal singing experience would be an advantage. While it should be said that many of the current members joined the Choir having had considerable previous experience, an equal number had nil or very little. What is required is the ability to attend regularly at the weekly practices and a sense of humour and patience are also useful. You will be associating with a varied group whose mutual interests are not confined to music. Although the original membership was mainly from the village, as the choir's reputation has grown, it has attracted people from a wider area and fewer than half of the current members now live in Radcliffe as the following map illustrates: