Choir History: Here's to the next 50 years!

The Warwick & Kenilworth Choral Society was founded in May 1953, when the then separate Warwick and Kenilworth choral societies merged, following a joint performance of Handel's Messiah at the first Warwick Festival. The Festival founder, Tim (Thomas) Tunnard, accepted the invitation to become conductor of the new Society, and its first concert, Bach's Christmas Oratorio , was given on New Year's Day 1954 at St Mary's Church, Warwick, where Tim Tunnard was organist and choirmaster. Since then the Society has given three further performances of the Christmas Oratorio . Other performances of works by Bach include three of the St Matthew Passion and five each of the B minor Mass and the St John Passion , together with numerous secular and religious cantatas.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, Handel is the composer to have been performed most frequently over the last fifty years. The records show there have been at least 27 performances of Messiah in Warwick or Kenilworth, with excerpts of that work featuring in several other concerts. Judas Maccabeus has been performed three times; at the second performance in 1980, the soprano soloist was a certain Lesley Garrett, who had also sung on several earlier occasions with the Society. After Messiah , the most popular works performed have been Fauré's Requiem and Brahms's German Requiem (seven performances each), Haydn's The Creation and Mozart's Requiem (six each), with perhaps surprisingly, Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle scoring four performances, ahead of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius , Mendelssohn's Elijah and Haydn's The Seasons with three each.

There have been numerous other works performed in a total of 171 concerts recorded in the archives to December 2006, spanning composers from Arne to Zoltan Kodaly and the years from the twelfth to the twentieth century. The tradition of annual Messiah performances at St Nicholas' Church in Kenilworth began in 1984.

The 50th Anniversary Concert performance of Verdi's Requiem in November 2003 was Ronald Binnie's thirty-third concert with the Society. Having been rehearsal accompanist from 1993 and conducting a concert in 1994, he succeeded Jeremy Dibb in March 1996. Colin Druce, our present rehearsal accompanist and répétiteur, joined us on a regular basis in September 1999; he also takes sectional rehearsals, and occasionally deputises for the conductor. Colin has also performed piano concertos by Grieg and Mozart at our concerts, as well as organ music by Widor and Liszt.

Tim Tunnard gave his last concert with the Society in 1958, and the longest serving conductor to date has been Russell Lovick, who conducted his first concert in May 1960, continuing until May 1974, although he remained a singing member for many years after that. The baton passed to Anthony Metcalfe in 1974, and he was followed by Andrew Fletcher in September 1977, Kipps Horn in January 1981, and Timothy Hone in 1982. Stephen Perrins took over from September 1987 until 1989, and after a short interim Jeremy Dibb took charge in September 1990.

In addition to Lesley Garrett, the Society has worked with many musicians who have achieved national and international acclaim. A brief list would include Reginald Jacques, Jennifer Vyvyan, Norma Proctor, Heather Harper, Stephen Varcoe, Christopher Keyte and John Noble.

Having started off with 95 paying members, the Society's membership ranged from about 40 to 60 through the Fifties until the early Eighties. From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s it grew to some eighty or so, and in the last few years the Society has continued to prosper, its membership increasing steadily to its present strength of a chorus of well over a hundred in most concerts, of which there are four each year. It is a pleasure to record that one soprano, Margaret Battersea, joined the Society fifty years ago and still sings with the choir today. The male singer whose membership goes back the furthest appears to be bass Barry Young, who joined a year or two after the Society was formed. They both appear in the old photo at the top of the page.

This picture shows the agenda and accounts for the first AGM of the Society, held on 2 June 1954. The opening balance for the newly formed Warwick & Kenilworth Choral Society was £11.2.6d (£3.8.1d from the Kenilworth Society and £7.14.5d from the Warwick Society). Subscriptions were 7/6d and 5/-, total annual receipts being £34 from 95 paying members.

Ronald Binnie, Musical Director from 1993 to 2008.

Ronald Binnie became accompanist for WKCS in 1993 and took over as conductor in March 1996. The summer 2005 concert marked the fortieth time he had conducted the Society.

He has had a varied career. His earliest musical tuition was at the hands of his mother, a singer and music teacher. While other teenagers were at the Saturday night hop, Ronald would frequently be found at home playing string quartets and quintets with his father, a viola player, and his father's chamber-music companions. He never considered this an unusual childhood, and if his contemporaries did, they never commented on it. Subsequently he studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, from which he graduated in 1968, to take up a position as a music teacher in Edinburgh, and later in St Andrews.

In order to preserve his great love for music, he abandoned the classroom in 1978 and embarked on a new venture in the world of educational publishing, eventually going into partnership and setting up his own publishing house in 1993. Throughout all this runs a constant thread of music from the singer, sometime organist and violin player, and most frequently the conductor, variously of choral societies, chamber and church choirs, symphony orchestras and in the light operatic world - everything from Annie Get Your Gun to Zadok the Priest!

Ronald Binnie described the business of running a thriving and rapidly expanding company as 'frenetic', with his Monday night rehearsals of the Warwick and Kenilworth Choral Society his 'weekly oasis of sanity'. Besides his passion for the baton, the other loves in his life are reading books in the sun, snorkelling over coral reefs and being a grandad.

As befits a musician, Ron's birthday is on the feast day of St Cecilia, patron saint of music, a date he shares with the composers Benjamin Britten, Orlando Gibbons and Joaquín Rodrigo.

Ron Binnie decided to retire as Music Director at the end of 2008. The choir benefited enormously from his combination of firm technical direction and a lively sense of humour. Rehearsals under Ron were great fun as well as educational.

Ron was also involved in, and supportive of, the general administration of the Society and conducted the choir in some 50 performances at the time of his departure in December 2008.

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