Richard Emms, who has led the Stour Singers for half a century, has announced he will be retiring in May.

Starting with a small band of madrigal singers, he has grown the choir until it now performs with professional soloists and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire orchestra.

Here, Richard reflects on his decades leading this ‘unusually disciplined and expressive’ choir:

 

Where’s the choir? That was one of my first thoughts about Shipston when I settled here with my family 50 years ago. Shipston had – still has! – an excellent band, but there was no equivalent choir.

As Head of Music at Shipston Community School, as the High School was known then, I thought it right that I should address this lack, and so ran an evening class on madrigal singing. Great fortune: we had a perfectly - balanced mixed choir of 15 singers. The year after, I decided to work without fee; the choir snowballed and acquired its name, Stour Singers. During the first five years the choir was already attracting some very able singers and we reached the point where I thought: ‘We can tackle the big stuff.’ So after testing the ground with Vivaldi’s Gloria, we embarked on a performance of Haydn’s Creation, with orchestra and our own soloists....and the choir has never looked back. It had become, in effect, Shipston’s Choral Society.

Now, of course, we have professional soloists, most of whom appear on concert platforms and in opera houses across Europe, and we have a lively collaboration with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire which provides our orchestra. The 40-odd years between have been something of an adventure with huge highs and the inevitable lows. Barry Draycott and Richard Jenkinson at different times rescued the choir when I was ill. And then there was the dreaded Covid: we had 83 members before, and 30 after! But I notice the choir recovers all the stronger after setbacks, and it now has about 50 very committed members and a really business-like committee who run it. The choir’s performance last Christmas was unusually disciplined and expressive for an amateur choir – you wouldn’t guess they had not been auditioned.

And: there have been for me unexpected discoveries. Yes, I have set in motion a group who come together to make music. But it’s not just the music, it’s the people. Of course, it’s the individual skills and personalities they bring to the choir, but singing in choirs lifts the spirits, fires the imagination, promotes health (for some it has been a life-saver), and brings people together to make new friends. When I look at the choir from the rostrum, I see a complicated knot of groups of friends. That, and their enthusiasm, is what makes them such a joy to work with.

My dream was that the choir should become an established part of Shipston’s music culture. It clearly can stand on its own feet. We have found my very promising successor, Alex Silverman: a man, young, and of considerable musical gifts and charisma. This year in May is a good time to retire and hand over the choir in good heart. Perhaps my dream may have come true?