One of the North West’s leading school choirs has been offered an opportunity to perform in Westminster Abbey in 2012, and it was a performance 3,000 miles away in the US capital, Washington DC, that helped seal the date.
The Choir of Rossall School, based on Lancashire’s Fylde Coast, have performed in some of the world’s most famous cathedrals, including, Notre Dame in Paris and St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, but it was a performance in America’s National Cathedral in Washington DC earlier this year that prompted our own Westminster Abbey to say yes to the choir performing evensong in the UK’s most iconic cathedral. Unknown to the Choir, the American hosts had recorded all its performances in Washington and presented Director of Music, Margaret Young with a DVD on departure. It was this, and the fact that one of Rossall’s American performances was broadcast live for Americans around the world on the cathedral’s website, which convinced the Abbey to consider the Choir for an August 2012 appearance.
So successful has Rossall’s choir been in recent years that it is soon to form an elite choir to take on the very best professional choirs in the UK and beyond. It also plans to record a CD of the new choir’s performances for release during 2012.
Said Margaret Young: “This year has been a fantastic time for the Choir, and next year promises to be even more exciting, which is a great advertisement for the qualities of this school.
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“Some of our members are quite young and a number come from countries, which have no culture of choral performance, so for them to be able to perform in Washington, be broadcast around the world, and then to find that they have been chosen to sing in Westminster Abbey is awe-inspiring. They also know now that the Rossall Choir is something that could stay with them long after they leave the school, because our elite choir, when formed, will include many Old Rossallians, who will be able to maintain their ties with us through music at the highest level.”
Rossall’s choir will be performing a number of concerts prior to Christmas on the school’s coastal campus and is also keen to look for performance opportunities across the North West in the New Year.