John reminisces

I arrived at Keele in October 1974 aged 24, as a junior lecturer in the Psychology Department. My previous six years as a student (Oxford and London) had immersed me in a very rich choral world, both as singer and conductor, and I was eager to use these skills to the benefit of the community. In June 1975 I organised a performance of the jazz cantata Captain Noah’s Floating Zoo as part of Keele’s annual Summer Festival, and out of that arose the idea of an auditioned 20-30 strong chamber choir to complement the much larger allcomers student Choral Society. Although based at Keele, the idea from the start was to involve local singers who were not members of the University (“town and gown”), and this has proved key to the choir’s long term success, with more and more of the core membership being permanent local residents rather than transitory students. Indeed, Marjorie Seddon, the only founding member from 1975 still singing in the choir, is exactly such a local stalwart!

The first official concert of the Keele Chamber Choir was in around December 1975, although no-one can seem to remember the exact date, nor what was performed. From then on we rehearsed on campus weekly during term and put on three or four concerts a year. Although the majority of concerts were in the Keele Chapel, we aimed for at least one offcampus concert per year, sometimes combining with other choirs in a major project. Our repertoire was eclectic, ranging from Monteverdi to Britten, and our concerts venues ranged as far as Worcestershire, being about the farthest possible to easily get home the same night.

For the first years, the organisation was incredibly “shoestring”. I took rehearsals from the piano, so was both choir trainer and accompanist. Everyone was an unpaid volunteer, and we got the premises for free as a campus society, so the size of the audience didn’t matter very much to us, what mattered was that we got the opportunity to sing interesting repertoire together to a high standard. It was a very sociable affair, with post-rehearsal drinks in the Keele Postgraduate Association (KPA), then housed in the basement of Keele Hall, being an essential part of the evening’s proceedings.

From the start, we involved local instrumentalists, ranging from a small baroque ensemble of half a dozen students (led by the late George Pratt of the Music Department), to ad-hoc chamber orchestras of a dozen or more, made up also of a mixture of students, staff, and local amateurs. Here I have to pay special tribute to the violinist of extraordinary musicianship and dedication, the late Hans Liebeck of the Keele Maths Department, who led most of our orchestral performances until I left the choir (and beyond).

The most remarkable project of those early years was our participation in a historic performance at the Victoria Hall Hanley in 1978 of Havergal Brian’s monumental choral symphony The Gothic. The entire project was held together by a huge team of local organisers, and I was entrusted with the role of chorus master, bringing together 400 singers from no less than 12 separately coached local choirs, to complement the 170-player orchestra. It was a wild and bizarre (but hugely rewarding) experience which all who participated will no doubt remember for the rest of their lives.

A major turning point in the choir’s history came when in 1985 I decided to put on the first performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor that the Potteries had seen since Malcolm Sargent had brought it there in the 1950s. The Keele Chamber Choir and its instrumentalist friends formed the nucleus of this performance, also at the Victoria Hall, but we needed to recruit a considerable number of additional competent singers. By making the performance a fundraiser for the charity War on Want, we were able to persuade everyone, including some professional or semi-professional performers, to offer their services for free, and we raised extra funds by selling a cassette recording of the concert (which I still have as a prized possession). The project required a substantial committee, with clearly defined roles, and that volunteer group became the essential support for gearing up the choir to a larger body of 40-60 singers capable of taking on larger choir and orchestra repertoire than a chamber choir could manage. And so, we changed our name to Keele Bach Choir, as an indication that works of the stature and proportions of Bach would be at the core of our repertoire.

It was around that time that the late Professor Andor Gomme agreed to become the Choir’s Chairman. Andor was a Professor in the English Department, but his interests and expertise extended way beyond English literature. He had a vast and comprehensive knowledge of the classical repertoire, and made many inspired suggestions for works we should perform. His most memorable contribution was creating the first modern performing edition of Bach’s unfinished St Mark Passion, filling in recitatives and other movements from the composition of Bach’s contemporary Reinhard Keiser. We gave the first performance of the Gomme Edition in March 1990, and then in June (in our London debut) at Holy Trinity Church Sloane Street, with guest conductor Nigel Springthorpe, who then went on with his own choir to make the first professional recording of the edition.

Because the majority of choir members in the early years were students, singing only for a few years before moving away, we decided to institute periodic “reunion weekends” when former and present members could join together, putting together a performance on the Sunday afternoon, and preceded by a reunion dinner on the Saturday night. The first of these was in 1985. A particularly special reunion took place in June 1990 as part of the celebrations of Keele’s 40th anniversary, when a 58-strong choir was joined by a 50-strong orchestra (made up entirely of past and present members of the University) in an all-Brahms programme, including his German Requiem.

My personal highlight of the 1990s was the performance we put on of Haydn’s The Seasons in June 1994. This wonderful work, somewhat overshadowed by his more performed Creation, has exquisite writing for both choir and soloists, and it is important to pay tribute to some of the wonderful soloists we have been able to draw from our own community, including Kate Snape, Ruth and Hester Gomme, Marjorie Seddon, John Cox, Nik Hancock, and John Cliffe, to name but a few.

By 1994 I had already indicated to the committee that I planned to step down from conducting the choir in 1995, having served it for 20 years. Being entrusted with a choir is a great privilege. It is also a great responsibility. My personal passion is choral singing, and for 20 years I had to deny myself any substantial opportunity to sing. There was just not the time to do both. Since 1995 I have hardly conducted, but have returned to the ranks of the 2nd basses of a wide variety of choirs and vocal ensembles, where I still enjoy the profound joys of ensemble singing. I was hugely enriched by my 25 years of conducting, most of it at Keele, and am relieved and delighted that my legacy has been preserved and developed under the batons of my hugely talented successors.

I was in a uniquely privileged position of having conducting and accompanying skills and energies without needing to be paid for my efforts, having a secure salaried day job as a university academic. This gave the choir a rather easy financial ride for its first 20 years, and I do not underestimate the “ramping up” in fundraising efforts that the move to professional paid conductors and accompanists entailed. That these efforts have been so successful is testament to the devotion and dedication of successive choir committees. Conductors come and go, and it is a strong choir committee which holds things together and ensures continuity. We should all be immensely grateful for the support of the committee members who have performed this unsung service, in several cases over decades. For instance, Kay Williams, who joined the committee in my time, is still serving it today, 35 years later. I send my warmest congratulations to Glynis Brewer and her colleagues on the committee for holding the fort so successfully, and for taking the initiative to mark the 50th Anniversary by an enhanced programme of special events in 2025. Long may the choir prosper!

John Sloboda, February 2025