Het Taplow Girls’Choir maakt deze maand een tour door Nederland en geeft op 27 mei een concert in de Sint-Jan. Ze zullen een gevarieerd programma ten gehore brengen, met klassieke, moderne en religieuze muziek.

TAPLOW GIRLS’ CHOIR, conductor Gillian Dibden M.B.E., was formed in the Autumn of 2004, and is well known in the local area and further afield. There are 45 members, aged between 10 and 15 joining the Choir after audition drawn from across Slough, Maidenhead and South Bucks. It is part of a structure of four choirs offering excellence in choral training, a Children’s Choir, Boys’ and Girls’ Choirs and a Youth Choir.  Many of our young singers go on to hold Oxbridge Choral Awards or join the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.

In 2007, Taplow Girls’ Choir travelled to Slovenia to take part in the International Choral Competition in Celje, Slovenia and returned with two silver medals and the Adjudicators’ special prize for the best performance of a compulsory set piece. The choir meets on alternate Saturday afternoons and enjoys a residential weekend away each year as well and many opportunities for performance.

Until 2020, the choir had undertaken concert tours in alternate years in Europe, and hopes to resume this pattern again soon. In 2022, a short UK tour was enjoyed with Choral Evensongs in York Minster and Southwell Minster and concerts in Selby Abbey and the Old Priory Church in Malton. The choir sings Choral Evensong annually in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Taplow Girls’ Choir was delighted to perform in the Final of ‘BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year’ competition 2008. The choir has enjoyed several performances over the years of Benjamin Britten’s cantata St Nicolas, meeting the challenges of the Gallery Choir role with enthusiasm and confidence and they are pleased to be invited by various Choral Societies to sing this role and also the Children’s Choir part in John Rutter’s ‘Mass of the Children’.

In February 2024, the choir had the opportunity to take part in a wonderful concert in St George’s Chapel with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and The Bach Choir when John Rutter conducted a very special concert, where the programme included his ‘Mass of the Children’ and Visions, a very memorable piece for upper voices, harp organ and a virtuoso solo violin part. We regarded it as a very special privilege to be invited to be part of Sir John’s Christmas concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a very memorable day and we have now been invited to take part in the professional recording of his ‘Songs of London Town’, with his Cambridge Singers and an ensemble from The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The choir is looking forward very much to its concert tour in The Netherlands in May this year with 25 of its members.