Choir Blog – Sheffield Bach Society

Choir gives “outstanding” sell-out Messiah in Cutler’s Hall

4 December 2025

A sold-out Cutler’s Hall was the venue for an outstanding performance of Handel’s Messiah from Sheffield Bach Choir on Monday 1 December in a concert conducted by Philip Colin and attended by the Mistress Cutler Gina Jackson and other dignitaries.

Messiah, first performed in Dublin in 1742, has been performed countless times the world over ever since, including every year by Sheffield Bach Choir in partnership with the National Festival Orchestra. With guests from Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and a team of talented soloists, the mastery of Handel’s magnificent oratorio from both singers and players was very much on show on Monday night.

“The performance from your choir was outstanding and I felt very privileged to be there.” said the Mistress Cutler Gina Jackson. “The hall normally has a buzz during our annual feast but tonight your choir beat that hands down.“

A collection was taken for the Master Cutler’s charity, the Weston Park Cancer Charity, and the concert was dedicated to the memory of Helen Frances Walker, a keen supporter of the choir for over 35 years and often seen knitting on the back row of the audience.

The choir now looks forward to its annual Come and Sing Christmas Messiah at St James’s Church Norton. Open to anyone, it costs £15 including mulled wine and mince pies. See Current Season Concerts for further information and to buy tickets.

Faure and Britten prove to be big hits

19 November 2025

A substantial audience at St Mark’s Church were treated to a superb concert on Saturday 15 November 2025, with Sheffield Bach Choir and choristers from St John’s Ranmoor, with players from the National Festival orchestra and organist Peter Shepherd, conducted by Philip Collin.

The pairing of Benjamin Britten’s exciting oratorio Saint Nicolas with Gabriel Faure’s beautiful Requiem proved to be very popular, with an almost-full church greatly appreciating the performances from choir, choristers, soloists and players.

Britten’s piece featured young choristers singing beautifully from the back of the church, with the three pickled boys (actually girls on this occasion) making the most of the drama by singing while moving up the central aisle to the front.

Dr Lindley composition played on BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3’s Evensong recording on 25 June 2025 featured the Canticles from Dr Simon Lindley’s Knaresborough Service. Dr. Lindley was the choir’s previous conductor, who died earlier this year.

“Composing was just one of Simon’s many talents” said Choir Chair Chris Walker, ” It was great to hear his Knaresborough Canticles being used as part of Evensong; he would have been thrilled”.

The service was recorded at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London on 28 May, and features the St Martin’s Voices conducted by Director of Music Andrew Earis; Ben Collyer was the organist.

Music-lovers can hear it for the next 32 days via BBC Sounds. To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Choral Evensong”, or click on the link below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002dmx8

Choir remembers Dr Simon Lindley

Sheffield Bach Choir dedicated their latest offering to the memory of Dr Simon Lindley, their previous Music Director and well known organist and conductor. Conductor Philip Collin shared reminiscences and accolades from Dr Lindley’s colleagues and members of the choir.

The concert was a wonderful programme of paired works, each pair featuring a well-known and popular piece alongside a lesser-known work by the same composer.

Audience members were treated to Handel’s wonderful coronation anthem Zadok the Priest followed by the lesser known The King shall rejoice, also written for the crowning of King George II.

Two settings of The Spirit of the Lord were sung – a lesser known one by Norman Barnes, the founding conductor of the choir and music teacher at King Edward VII school, and the well-known setting of the same text by Edward Elgar, whose wonderful Nimrod from the Enigma Variations also featured on the programme by way of an organ piece played by cathedral organist James Mitchell. Later he was joined by Music Director Philip Collin in a fiendish piano duet rendition of Holst favourite Jupiter from The Planets, arranged by Peter Petrof.

J S Bach works also featured of course – Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, which most people know, and Christ lag in Todesbanden, less well known but equally marvellous.

The concert ended with popular favourite Jerusalem by Parry following the beautiful Never Weather-Beaten Sail from his Songs of Farewell.

If You Like That You’ll Love This!

Sheffield Bach Choir presents a wonderful programme of paired works, each pair featuring a well-known and popular piece alongside a lesser-known work by the same composer.

For example, Handel’s wonderful Zadok the Priest is paired with The King shall rejoice, and popular favourite Jerusalem by Parry with the beautiful Never Weather-Beaten Sail from his Songs of Farewell.

J S Bach works featured are Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, which most people know, and Christ lag in Todesbanden, less well known but equally marvellous.

Two settings of The Spirit of the Lord will be sung – a lesser known one by Norman Barnes, the founding conductor of the choir and music teacher at King Edward VII school, and the well-known setting of the same text by Edward Elgar, whose wonderful Nimrod from the Enigma Variations also features on the programme by way of an organ piece. Organist Peter Shepherd will also play an arrangement of Holst favourite Jupiter from The Planets, arranged by Peter Petrof.

Tickets are available online so come on down to St Mark’s Church Broomhill for a super summer feast of choral and organ delights!

Memorial concert for Simon Lindley 18 October 2025

The world of music lost a great organist and choral conductor on 25 February 2025, when Dr Simon Lindley passed away aged 76, following a short illness.

In accordance with Dr Lindley’s wishes, a simple funeral was held at St John’s Church, Moor Allerton (LS17 7BZ) on Tuesday 8 April at 12 noon.

The service was relayed to the many mourners who gathered outside, since the church is very small, and was followed by his burial in the churchyard.

A Requiem Mass sung to the music of Maurice Duruflé will take place at Leeds Minster on Thursday 10 April at 8.00pm.

It is intended that a celebratory concert in memory of Dr Lindley will take place on
Saturday 18 October – more details will be announced when available.

Choir mourns death of former Conductor

Sheffield Bach Choir members were greatly saddened to hear that their former Conductor and Music Director Dr Simon Lindley passed away on 25 February 2025 aged 76, following a short illness.

Simon Geoffrey Lindley was born in Barnehurst, Kent, in 1948, the elder of two children of the Rev Geoffrey Lindley, a Yorkshireman who was curate of St Michael’s, East Wickham, and his wife Jeanne (née Cammaerts), whose own father was the Belgian poet and art historian Émile Cammaerts. Simon had a sister, Ruth, who became a chorister at the London Oratory. Their great-grandmother, Marie Brema, was a friend of the composer Edward Elgar and sang the Angel in the premiere of The Dream of Gerontius at the 1900 Birmingham Festival.

“We were devastated to hear that Simon had died” said Chorus Chair Chris Walker. “He was a superb choral conductor who really knew how to make sure that we were not just prepared, but confident, on concert days. His rehearsals were punctuated by lively and often amusing anecdotes about his experiences with composers, conductors and musicians.”

Simon’s obituary was published in various regional and national newspapers:

The Times

The Telegraph

The Yorkshire Post

Choir saddened by death of tenor Ben Thapa

Wednesday 18 September 2024

Choir members were extremely saddened by the news that tenor Ben Thapa had died on 8 September aged only 42, after a short but serious illness that led to organ failure.

“Ben sang the Evangelist in our St John Passion concert in March 2023, and in Messiah in December 2013″ said choir Chair Chris Walker. ” He had a huge voice, rich and full. He will be sadly missed.”

Ben rose to fame as a member of G4, a group of four singers which reached the final of ITV’s first series of X Factor. He left the group in 2018 to pursue his own music career.Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

As a boy he sang in the choir of the Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs in Cambridge, and became a choral scholar at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark. He appeared regularly at Westminster Cathedral and the Brompton Oratory, and was a cantor for the Latin Mass Society. He loved church music and was passionate about helping young singers.

Ben studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London; he later attended the Wales International Academy of Voice.

He left G4 in 2018 to concentrate on an operatic career. He enjoyed considerable success and was much in demand for opera and oratorio work in the UK and overseas. His operatic credits included Tito in La Clemenza di Tito for Teatru Manoel, The President in Mittwoch aus Licht for the Birmingham Opera and Siegfried in The Quest For The Ring at the Royal Festival Hall in association with Opera North.

In 2020, he made his main stage debut at the English National Opera as part of their Carmen education project.

Nelson Mass kicks off new season

Sheffield Bach Choir has kicked off the 2024-25 season with rehearsals for Haydn’s Nelson Mass, to be performed in St John’s Church, Ranmoor in November.

“Austria had been recently been defeated by Napoleon in four battles , and Haydn referred to the work as A Mass for troubled times.” explained Musical Director Philip Collin. “However, by the first performance Nelson had just defeated Napoleon and this coincidence led to the name”

Also on the programme is A Great and Glorious Victory by conductor and composer Jonathan Willcocks, whose works have been published and widely performed across the world.

The Nelson Mass concert is followed by the choir’s annual Messiah, back in Sheffield cathedral, with the ever-popular Come and Sing Messiah a week later in St James’ Church Norton.

Spring features Bach’s masterful St Matthew Passion at the cathedral, this time sung in the original German, and ends in St Mark’s Broomhill with an intriguing mix of works entitled If you like that you’ll love this!

For more details and to buy tickets go to Current Season Concerts

Soloists and choirs shine in Brahm’s German Requiem

Monday 1st July 2024

On Saturday 29th June Sheffield Oratorio Chorus and Sheffield Bach Choir joined soloists Elizabeth Watts and Darren Jeffery and the South Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra to perform Brahms’ wonderful German Requiem at the Victoria Hall in Sheffield.

The two choirs had a wonderful time singing one of the favourites of the choral repertoire, and the two soloists were absolutely superb. Elizabeth Watts, hailed by the International Record Review as “one of the most beautiful voices Britain has produced in a generation”, Elizabeth sang with passion and meticulous accuracy, thrilling members of the audience, choir and orchestra alike. Bass-baritone Darren Jeffery’s voice is well suited to the work and his rendition was rich and powerful.

Fantastic playing by the South Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra and organist Philip Collin, conducted with spirit by Alan Eost, this was a marvellous end to the season.